Technology
SpaceX’s Starship veered off course during a test flight on Thursday, marking the second consecutive incident where the craft has entered a perilous situation in its journey to orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) briefly suspended operations at major Florida airports and appears to have redirected several others out of an abundance of caution regarding “apartment delivery debris.” The agency informed TechCrunch that it is indeed mandating SpaceX to conduct what’s referred to as a mishap investigation into the incident.
The company launched Starship with its Super Heavy booster and everything appeared normal for the initial eight minutes of the flight. The spacecraft successfully detached and ascended into space while the booster returned safely to the firm’s launchpad in texas, where it was once again “captured” by the launch tower.
However, around eight minutes and nine seconds into the mission, SpaceX’s live feed indicated that Starship had lost multiple Raptor engines. Footage from onboard cameras revealed that the vehicle began spiraling uncontrollably over the ocean.
“We just witnessed some engines go offline; it seems we are losing control of attitude on this ship,” stated SpaceX communications director Dan Huot during their broadcast. “At this moment we have lost contact with our vehicle.”
Images shared on social media depicted parts of the ship disintegrating over both Bahamas and Dominican Republic just afew moments later. The company announced via X that they “promptly began coordinating with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency measures.”
These high-profile explosions come as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been stirring up controversy within U.S. federal agencies through his Department of Executive efficiency.
This includes deploying personnel directly within FAA which oversees flights conducted by SpaceX.
The firm aimed to deploy four dummy versions of its Starlink satellites during thursday’s test flight—a step towards utilizing Starship for commercial endeavors. They have been intentionally advancing Starship through rapid test flights while learning from both successful and unsuccessful outcomes.
The failure on Thursday follows closely after theirseventh test flight, which saw Starship explode dramatically above Turks & Caicos islands leading FAA to reroute numerous flights in that airspace.
A mishap investigation was conducted following that failure where they persistent propellant had leaked inside
Starship causing fires along with interaction loss before self-destruction occurred.
PDURING SOME OF ITS EARLIER TEST FLIGHTS SPACE X EXPERIENCED STARSHIP BREAKING APART WHILE ATTEMPTING REENTRY INTO EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE.THE COMPANY IMPLEMENTED CHANGES ON SEVENTH TEST FLIGHT INTENDED TO HELP IT BETTER PREPARATE FOR REENTRY.
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This story has been updated with FAA’s response.
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