The launch of the world’s largest Super Heavy rocket from Starship ended in failure

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship entered the stratosphere, reached an altitude of 38 km, went into an uncontrolled rotation and then exploded. Broadcast was conducted on the SpaceX YouTube channel.

The emergency situation occurred three minutes after takeoff. At an altitude of 38 km, the first stage was supposed to separate, but this did not happen. After that, the rocket began to rotate, descend and exploded in the fourth minute.

“We see from cameras on Earth that the Starship rocket continues to spin. The separation of the first stage by this moment should already have occurred. Obviously, what is happening now does not look like something planned, ”the broadcast host said.

After the launch of the rocket, SpaceX tweeted that it would study the data and work on preparations for the next flight. According to Elon Musk, the next launch could happen in a few months. The company added that “today’s test will help improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX strives to make life multi-planetary.”

According to Alexander Ermakov, a researcher at the IMEMO RAS, it is not worth saying that the launch was definitely unsuccessful, since the rocket has already entered the stratosphere. According to him, it is impossible to say for sure whether the cause of the explosion is the abnormal pressure in the tanks of the launch vehicle or the desynchronization of the engines. “For the first tests in the assembly of all stages with a payload, this is not bad,” the expert believes.

On April 17, the first suborbital flight was supposed to take place, but its moved. The success of the mission depended on weather conditions, the condition of the launch vehicle, and the absence of foreign objects near the spaceport. According to Elon Musk, the decision was made due to the fact that the pressure valve in the fuel tank froze.

Previous tests of Super Heavy launch vehicle prototypes have also resulted in incidents. In particular, in July 2022 the rocket exploded at the launch pad in Texas. Musk then reported that the problem occurred when testing 33 engines to spin at the same time, while the Raptor had a “difficult launch sequence.”

The super-heavy launch vehicle is powered by 33 Raptor methane engines. Super Heavy was supposed to reach a suborbital speed of 28,160 km / h – and rise to a height of 234 km. On board the rocket was the Starship, which is planned to be used to deliver the crew and cargo to different Earth orbits, as well as in lunar and Martian missions.

The Super Heavy rocket, 120 meters high, has a thrust of 7,700 tons – that’s twice the Saturn V rocket that took American astronauts to the moon in 1969. In other words, the power of the new rocket is equivalent to the force required to propel almost 100 Concorde supersonic airliners during takeoff.