By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-17 18:45:53 | Updated at 2025-01-17 22:58:30
4 hours ago
Elon Musk’s SpaceX suspects a fire is to blame for his 400-foot-tall Starship imploding in space after launching from Texas — sending trails of flaming debris raining down near the Caribbean.
The billionaire said a preliminary assessment of Thursday’s test flight failure showed that an internal leak of liquid oxygen fuel may have built up pressure in the colossal rocket’s cavity during lift off and sparked a fire.
The resulting blaze would have caused the doomed spacecraft to break apart during liftoff.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX suspects a fire is to blame for his 400-foot-tall Starship breaking apart in space after launching from Texas on Thursday. APThe company vowed on Friday to carry out “a thorough investigation” into the accident in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Starship — the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket — had launched from the southern tip of Texas on a test flight Thursday evening.
The booster made it back to the pad for a catch by giant mechanical arms, dubbed “chopsticks.” The maneuver marked only the second successful catch in Starship history.
The engines on the still-ascending spacecraft, however, started shutting down before all communication was lost roughly 8.5 minutes into the flight.
Dramatic footage taken near the Turks and Caicos Islands showed debris from the spacecraft raining down from the sky in the aftermath.
The ordeal caused flights in the area to be diverted.
Before it imploded, the Starship was supposed to zoom across the Gulf of Mexico and release 10 dummy satellites as practice before it would self-destruct in the Indian Ocean.
Musk said on X that the accident was “barely a bump in the road” in his plans to build a fleet of Starships to carry people to Mars.
After enough testing, he plans to send out actual Starlink satellites on the aircraft before advancing to other satellites and eventually people.
With Post wires
