by A starship – the most powerful rocket ever made, the heaviest thing ever put into orbit, and perhaps the spacecraft that will one day carry humans to Mars – was falling back to Earth. It was aglow with the hot plasma generated by plunging through the atmosphere at speed.
And then he disappeared. SpaceX’s video link, which until then had been providing spectacular views of the mission, was cut.
“The ship is lost. So no flash down today,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said shortly afterward. “But again, it’s incredible to see how far we’ve come this time.”
“Lost” is something of a euphemism: the spacecraft probably broke apart from the stress of returning to Earth, destroyed by the heat and friction of the atmosphere. But SpaceX has made it clear that it considers that loss a big win.
SpaceX is no stranger to successes ending in seemingly dramatic failures. The last two test flights of the Starship ended much the same way – and much faster.
In April 2023, the first orbital test flight took off and then blew itself up four minutes later when it went into an uncontrolled spin. SpaceX just wanted it to get off the launch pad, so it declared the explosion a success.
The second test came in November: it went on twice as long, but at eight minutes in the automated systems again an issue was detected and the spacecraft itself was destroyed. Again, SpaceX said it was a success – even if it ended with a spectacular explosion.
For this third test, SpaceX worked hard to try to temper expectations. If successful, the rocket would lift off and separate from its booster – the booster would come back and land safely on the ground, and the Starship would enter orbit before falling into the Indian Ocean in about an hour. after that.
Most of that happened. But things started to go wrong when the Starship fell back to Earth: it was supposed to burn its engines a bit, which didn’t happen, and then it lost contact with the ground on its way back down to Earth.
SpaceX, however, was keen to point out that the test was a success, and that a lot had been learned. NASA chief executive Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight”, while its president Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an X post that the test marked an “incredible day”.
A series of explosions and lost spacecraft may seem strange. But it is in line with the approach of SpaceX, which is much more risk-tolerant than other manufacturers and has been seen to be quite willing to make much of its development public, in live tests.
Chad Anderson, managing partner of SpaceX investor Space Capital, was one of many who said – despite the loss – that the mission was a success, and one that proved that the spacecraft is ready for commercial missions. “This is a very successful test flight for SpaceX,” he said The Independent.
“Starship managed to achieve almost all of its goals on an extremely ambitious test flight. An important objective of this test is for Starship to achieve orbital velocity. Another key test is to successfully open the payload doors. Both of those factors were necessary for SpaceX to proceed with its plans to launch the first Starlink satellites using Starship.
“At this point, I think SpaceX has shown that Starship is now ready to begin its payload delivery missions, which is an incredible step forward for the company — and the entire space economy.”
Still, the Federal Aviation Authority has said it will investigate the crash. SpaceX is required to investigate and provide information to regulators about each failure, so that they allow it to fly again.
That will be important: SpaceX plans to conduct at least six of the tests this year. And Elon Musk intends for the spacecraft to carry people to the Moon and Mars – but not before flying hundreds of times without people on board.
It might be okay to borrow from Silicon Valley’s software approach to iterative development and move fast and break things while carrying cargo, like SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. But the Starship will play a central role in the Artemis program that will bring people back to the Moon – where explosions will obviously not be tolerated.
As with the infamous announcement that the Starship was “lost”, SpaceX usually avoids saying that its spacecraft blew up. The company is fond of the phrase “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, or RUD, a slightly sarcastic phrase used regularly given the company’s history of explosions.
When the company was working on the Falcon 9 rocket – now a completely reliable vehicle that regularly and safely carries crew and cargo into orbit – it went through a long period of efforts to land them vertically, so that they could to reuse.
Now, in part because of the lessons learned in those explosions, SpaceX is able to reliably land the boosters. In total, 41 boosters have been used twice – and one, called B1058, has completed 19 missions.
