The next Starship Rocket from SpaceX exploded during a ground test in Zuid -Texas at the end of Wednesday and gave a new blow to a program that already has difficulty overcoming three consecutive failures in recent months.
The Late-Night explosion at SpaceX's Rocket Development Complex in Starbase, Texas, destroyed the bullet-shaped upper stage that was planned for launching during the next Starship-Test flight. The powerful explosion caused fires around the test site of SpaceX's Massey, located a few kilometers from the company's Starship Factory and launching pads.
Live streaming video from NasaspaceFlight.com and Labpadre–Media organizations with cameras placed around Starbase—Art the 15 -storey long rocket burst into flames shortly after 11 p.m. local time (12:00 am Edt; 4:00 AM UTC). Local residents up to 30 miles distance reported the seeing and feeling of the explosion.
SpaceX confirmed the spaceship, numbered ship 36 in the company's inventory, “” experienced a large anomaly “on a test standard while the vehicle was willing to ignite its six Raptor engines for a static fire test. These hold-down test-firings are usually one of the last milestones in a Starship Launch campaign before SpaceX de Rocket moved to the launch platform.
The explosion took place when SpaceX finished with loading super -cold methane and liquid oxygen drugs in the spaceship in preparation for the static fire test. The company said that the area around the test location of all staff had been evacuated, and everyone was safe and justified after the incident. Firefighters of the Brownsville fire brigade were sent on site.
“Our Starbase team works actively to secure the test location and the immediate environment in combination with local officials,” SpaceX placed on X. “There are no dangers for residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not try to approach the area while the security operations continue.”
In a separate post on X, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk wrote that provisional data suggests that a high -pressure nitrogen tank has failed in the loading bay of Starship. Many rockets have such tanks, or composite switched pressure vessels, which contain high pressure gases that are used for rinsing and putting different compartments under pressure in the vehicle. These tanks, or COPVs, can be picky. SpaceXing engineers blamed hardware associated with COPVs for the only two catastrophic malfunctions of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2015 and 2016.
