SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket explodes again

SpaceX launched a second test Starship – the largest and most powerful ship in the world that reached space – with a successful lift-off and separation of the booster and capsule, which it failed on its first attempt last April, but ended up exploding again a few minutes later.

The launch of the Starship on its huge Super Heavy booster, with 33 Raptor engines, took place in Boca Chica (Texas).

Less than three minutes after liftoff, both stages successfully separated thanks to a water irrigation system adopted after a failure in April.

The monumental Starship rocket, designed to reach the Moon and Mars in the future, on which NASA is counting its Artemis program back to the moonit made an almost complete circle around the Earth, within an hour and a half, before falling into the Pacific, near Hawaii.

SpaceX predicted that separating both stages would be a challenge and explained that a possible new failure in the launch would contribute to gathering more information for new adjustments.

Elon Musk’s company successfully began this critical test after about seven months the explosion in the air of the first test about four minutes after takeoff, forcing the company to cause it to explode.

However, although the process advanced, it also ended with an explosion at Gulf of Mexico when it was about 145 kilometers (90 miles) from Earth.

The 121-meter-tall Starship hoped to achieve near-orbital speeds this round, to be much closer to realizing its full potential.

The goal of the mission was to reach a close orbit.

According to SpaceX, Starship will be a reusable transportation system designed to transport crew and cargo to orbit around the Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Starship customers include NASA, which approached SpaceX for the Human Landing Services (HLS) contract for Artemis 3, a mission that will take astronauts to the moon for the first time since the 1970s.

NASA plans to launch Artemis 3 at the end of 2025.