This morning, after months of postponement, the rocket finally took off starship of SpaceX, which promises to be ‘the most powerful in history’. However, Elon Musk’s plane exploded in midair just minutes after takeoff. The billionaire owner of the company has already given his first words about the result of the expected test.
Starship is SpaceX and Elon Musk’s most ambitious rocket yet and they have waited 4 years for launch. The ship measures 120 meters in length and has 39 engines to propel it into space. The South African tycoon has made it clear on several occasions that his goal is to take humans into space and, in the future, colonize Mars or the Moon.
Takeoff was scheduled for April 17, but was postponed until Thursday, April 20. The company cited a technical failure as the reason, as they discovered that a pressurization valve was frozen.
Over the past week, Elon Musk hasn’t been too optimistic about the mission. He stressed that the most valuable thing about these tests was to collect data to implement future improvements.
In today’s test, the Starship blew up after just 4 minutes of flight.
“Although in the first moments of takeoff it seemed that everything was going according to plan, the rocket began to spin on its axis and instead of separating, as planned in the first stage of flight, the spacecraft ended up exploding and without completing the 90-minute journey before splashing down near Hawaii”, they report from High level.
The reaction of Elon Musk and SpaceX
Both the aerospace company and the owner of Twitter reacted immediately on social networks, from where they broadcast the launch live.
Although they have given many details about the causes of the incident, one of the failures would have been that the rocket “underwent an unscheduled rapid disassembly prior to stage separation”as they explained.
“The teams will continue to review the data and work toward our next flight test. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX looks to make life multiplanetary,” SpaceX said in a statement. Twitter thread.
“Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first integrated Starship flight test!” they added.
For his part, Elon Musk limited himself to congratulating and encouraging his team, without delving into details regarding the apparent failure of the mission.
“Congratulations to SpaceX on an exciting test launch of Starship! I learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months, ”wrote the also CEO of Tesla.
The 51-year-old billionaire was quick to post a short 11-second video of the rocket taking off. However, the clip doesn’t go as far as the part about the explosion and fall of the powerful ship.
Even NASA congratulated them on the launch of Starship
Despite the explosive result, those involved and even NASA consider that the Starship test has been a partial success, simply because they were able to lift the huge aircraft.
Even NASA administrator Bill Nelson also publicly congratulated Elon Musk’s space company.
“Congratulations to SpaceX on Starship’s first integrated flight test! Every great achievement throughout history has required some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward. Looking forward to everything SpaceX learns, to the next flight test, and beyond,” wrote the former senator and former astronaut.
Now all that remains is to wait for SpaceX and Elon Musk to announce when they will be able to attempt a new launch. Of course, they must first detect and correct the errors of this test, so that the Starship can take humanity ‘to infinity and beyond’.
Everything that happened can be seen in this video:
Editorial Team The editorial team of EMPRENDEDOR.com, which for more than 27 years has worked to promote entrepreneurship.