SpaceX launched its prototype rocket, known as SN10 , on a test flight over South Texas on Wednesday . Shortly afterward , the rocket successfully landed near its launch site. However, about three minutes after landing , the rocket exploded.
SpaceX's SN10 is an early prototype of the Starship Mars rocket. It lifted off at about 5:15 p.m. and reached about six miles above the area, as did SpaceX's two previous test flights, which failed to land successfully. The last Starship prototype made it to land, but exploded shortly after.
“We had a successful soft landing on site,” SpaceX engineer John Insprucker during an online event about the test flight.
It was unclear what caused to explode after landing, and SpaceX's live stream was cut off before the ignition.
As the engineer stated, SpaceX is building many more prototypes and the next one, SN11, will be ready for another test flight "in the near future.".
The rocket's first liftoff attempt, scheduled for around 3 p.m., was canceled at the last minute. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that the cancellation was caused by the rocket's preset thrust patterns, which Musk described as "slightly conservative." He added that the company would increase the rocket's thrust limit, giving it more room to get a head start on liftoff. The company then recycled SN10's fuel before the second, successful attempt.
Musk first explained Starship's intended landing method during an event in September 2019. He described it as a unique maneuver that would allow the rocket to return to Earth with its belly facing the ground as its four fins shift slightly to keep it stable. It's a maneuver that would mimic a skydiver, rather than the straight vertical descent to Earth that Falcon 9 when they land.
Perfecting the landing maneuver is necessary to “enable a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the Moon and travel to Mars and beyond,” according to the company’s website.
SpaceX intends to use Starship for a variety of purposes, including potentially assisting NASA Moon landing efforts and eventually beginning to transport cargo and people to Mars.
Starship is still in the early stages of development. A full-scale prototype has yet to be built. SpaceX has yet to publicly test the Super Heavy, a massive rocket booster that will be needed to propel Starship to Earth orbit or beyond. Musk said in a recent interview that he expects Starship to be flying regularly by 2023 and hopes to have the rocket in orbit by the end of this year. It's unclear whether SpaceX will beat that deadline. The aerospace industry, and Musk, is notorious for announcing projects that take much longer than originally expected.
