Elon Musk’s colossal new SpaceX rocket, named Starship, has been launched from the US. The rocket’s Super Heavy booster exploded shortly after lift-off, but the rocket itself remains intact, and the mission is still being considered a ‘success’.
It experienced what engineers have termed a ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’ during ascent, which effectively means it was not meant to happen. The space aircraft lifted off from the coastal town of Boca Chica, Texas at 7 am local time (1 pm UK time).
A SpaceX engineer said the team ‘lost the data’ from the second stage of the flight, and it’s still not clear what will happen to the rocket for the remainder of its journey. We have lost the data from the second stage,’ the engineer said. We heard a call out that we were internal guidance, which means we’re getting near the end of the approximately six-minute burn of Starship, but we haven’t got any more data since then.’
