The world's largest rocket, SpaceX's Starship, took its first test flight on April 20, 2023, reaching a height of around 39 km(24.2 miles) before exploding upon landing. Despite the catastrophic finish, NASA and other space experts lauded the flight as a watershed moment in the development of the reusable launch system, which may one-day transport humans to the moon and Mars.
The Starship from SpaceX is a gigantic stainless steel spacecraft that rises 50 metres tall and can transport up to 100 tonnes of payload to low Earth orbit. It is designed to be fully reusable, meaning both the Starship and its Super Heavy booster can land back on Earth and be flown again. The company plans to employ Starship for a number of missions, like lunar landings, extraterrestrial travel, and orbital refuelling.
NASA has selected Starship as its human landing system for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2025. SpaceX has received a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to develop and demonstrate Starship's capabilities for lunar missions. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on Starship's first test flight, saying that "every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk because with great risk comes great reward."
The test flight, which took place at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas, was the first time that Starship flew with its Super Heavy booster, which is powered by 33 Raptor engines and can lift Starship to orbit. The booster separated from Starship about three minutes after liftoff and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship continued its ascent to about 10 kilometres, then performed a belly flop manoeuvre to reorient itself for landing.
However, something went wrong during the final descent, and Starship exploded in a fireball as it approached the landing pad. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that "something significant happened shortly after landing burn start," but did not provide more details. He added that "at least the crater is in the right place!"
SpaceX has conducted several high-altitude test flights of Starship prototypes before, but none of them survived landing. The company said that each test is necessary to progress toward a human lunar landing and that it will learn from the data captured during the flight. The ultimate objective of SpaceX's Starship is to reach orbit by the end of 2023, thus the company wants to undertake further test flights of the vehicle in the upcoming months.
SpaceX's Starship launch was watched by millions of people online and attracted many spectators to the launch site. The AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) has congratulated the SpaceX authorities on the flight test and praised them for their continuous work for the future of advanced spaceflight.
"With Starship, SpaceX is taking bold steps that are helping us accelerate the future of humans living and working off our planet," AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher said. "Flight tests and taking risks will lead to this future."