On the 18th of November, 2023, SpaceX tested an uncrewed Starship, complete with its booster. The craft had mixed success, so let’s go over what exactly happened.
The massive vehicle lifted off from the Starbase launch site, located near Boca Chica in Texas, helping boost Starship (The upper module) up to 90 miles or 145 kilometers above ground on a 90-minute test mission.
During the flight, the rocket's Super Heavy booster, unfortunately, exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after successfully separating from Starship. Starship itself managed to continue toward space, but a few short minutes afterward, SpaceX lost contact with the craft. SpaceX engineer and livestream host John Insprucker said, “We think we may have lost the second stage.” He also said that engineers believe an automated flight termination command might have been triggered, though for an unknown reason.
Apart from that though, the craft did complete multiple of SpaceX’s milestones for this launch, including, but not limited to, successful booster separation, and reaching space.
Some think that SpaceX’s failure to reach all of its goals could produce extra setbacks for the company. The launch’s failure investigation will likely be reviewed, as will the company’s application for a new launch license.
On the other hand, this crash was in line with SpaceX’s development culture of rapid testing to stimulate design improvements. Many important officials have also stated that the rocket was far more successful in this launch than the one in April, where the rocket simply exploded just minutes after launch. Carissa Christensen, CEO of the space analytics firm BryceTech, also stated, “There's not money and patience for unlimited tests, but for a vehicle that is so different and so big, two, three, four, five tests is not excessive.”
Hopefully, SpaceX will learn and improve from these tests and sooner or later, fly people across space in a full-fledged Starship.