Unfortunately, history repeated itself when Starship‘s upper stage made it into space only to start spinning uncontrollably before losing contact and breaking apart, sending debris cascading back to earth early Thursday evening.
One of the goals of the flight was to catch the Super Heavy booster using the chopsticks on the launch tower, which was completed successfully.
A SpaceX Starship spacecraft, the upper portion of the most powerful launch system ever built, exploded during its eighth test flight Thursday, disrupting air traffic and marking the second consecutive failure for the vehicle this year.
The uncrewed Starship mission lifted off at 5:30 p.m. CT (6:30 p.m. ET) from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas, with the spacecraft riding atop a 232-foot-tall (71-meter-tall) Super Heavy rocket booster.
SpaceX launched Starship for 5th time on Oct. 13, 2024 from Starbase in south Texas. The Super Heavy booster was caught by the launch tower‘s ‚chopsticks‘ shortly after separation from Starship.
The company successfully used the arms of its launch tower to catch the rocket’s booster, a major milestone toward SpaceX’s goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system.
Starship continued on into space, traveling halfway around the world before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.