The SpaceX spacecraft exploded while ascending on its seventh test flight

Starship’s seventh test flight ended in an explosion when the vehicle’s upper stage underwent “rapid, unscheduled disassembly during ascent” over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk I posted a video The event, with debris scattered and the sky lighting up. During the company’s webcast, Dan Huot of SpaceX’s communications team spoke He said They “saw the engines fail on telemetry” toward the end of the ascent process and that they eventually lost contact with the ship, which the company calls the vehicle’s upper stage. SpaceX said in a tweet They will continue to review data from testing to understand the root cause of the explosion.

issued by the Federal Aviation Administration consultative To the pilots after the accident, warning them of falling debris in certain areas. SpaceX said before the test that it aimed to “launch a new-generation ship with significant upgrades” and the first payload deployment test for Starship was supposed to be carried out with the help of 10 Starlink simulators.

Although the spacecraft’s upper stage burned out, the test was still partially successful. The ship’s Raptor engines ignited during ascent burn before the ground team lost contact with it about 8 minutes into the flight. SpaceX was also able to recover the Super Heavy booster, picking up the vehicle’s first stage with the mechanical arms on its Starbase launch tower.