Houston: One of Elon Musk’s SpaceX star ships exploded during a routine test late Wednesday in Texas, said law enforcement, in the latest setback to the billionaire’s dream of transforming humanity into an interplanetary art.
Starship 36 LED “catastrophic failure and exploded” at the Starbase launch facility shortly after 7 p.m. 23.00 (0400 GMT Thursday), said a Facebook post from the Cameron County authorities.
A video that was shared with the post showed Megarocket attached to the launch arm and then a flash and a rough, fiery explosion.
Musk’s Space X said the rocket was preparing for the tenth flight test when it “experienced a greater deviation while on a test rack at Starbase,” without elaborating the nature of the complication.
“A safety -ready area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all staff is safe and explained,” Space X added on social media.
“There are no dangers to the residents of the surrounding communities, and we pray that individuals do not try to approach the area while the safing operations continue.”
The Star Ship was not scheduled for launch on Wednesday night when the explosion took place during a “routine static fire test”, according to Cameron County authorities.
Under a static fire, some of the procedures prior to a launch, the super heavy booster of the star ship would be anchored to the ground to prevent it from being lifted during the test firing.
Starbase on the South Texas Coast, near the Mexico border, is the headquarters of Musk’s space project.
Megarocket
Starship standing 403 feet (123 meters) high and is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket and central in Musk’s long -term vision of colonizing Mars.
The Star Ship is invoiced as a fully reusable rocket with a payday capacity of up to 150 tons.
The latest setback follows an explosion of a prototype -star vessel over the Indian Ocean in late May.
The largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built had lifted on May 27 from the Starbase system, but the first phase of super heavy booster jumped instead of performing its planned splashdown in the Mexico golf.
The previous two excursions also ended poorly, with the top step that was dissolved over the Caribbean.
But the failures will probably not do a little for Dent Musk’s spacious ambitions.
SpaceX has bet that its “fail quickly, learning fast” ethos, which has helped dominating commercial aerospace will eventually pay off.
