SpaceX “Starship” Explodes Minutes after Launch

The giant “Starship” super heavy-lift launch vehicle of the “SpaceX” company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, exploded minutes after its launch.

The rocket is intended for trips to the moon and Mars, and its launch from Texas today was its first experimental orbital flight.

“Starship” is a spacecraft that includes the most powerful rocket ever manufactured, with a length of 120 meters, which is longer than the new giant “NASA” rocket “SLS” (98 meters), which was launched on a first mission in November, and from the “Saturn 5” rocket (111 meters) of the Apollo missions.

Watch as SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded above the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, minutes after lifting off from a launchpad in Texas. Before the launch, the founder Elon Musk said it might take several tries before Starship succeeds at this test flight. https://t.co/woYnrJHbRJ pic.twitter.com/d7Q0EtwwW8

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 20, 2023

It is not yet known what caused the explosion of the “Starship”, whose launch aims to collect the largest amount of data in order to benefit from it in the following launch commercials.

“Starship” was on top of a massive rocket launcher called “Super Heavy” (the first stage of the missile).

Also, according to the decision, at some distance above the ground, the “Starship” had to separate from the booster and rely on its own engines to reach the orbital regions in space. But the rocket exploded before the separation phase, and the flight reached its highest point at 24.2 miles (39 kilometers) above the ground and the explosion occurred about four minutes after liftoff, according to SpaceX.

"The teams will continue to review the data and work towards the next flight test," SpaceX said.

This explosion does not constitute a failure for the company, as the rocket successfully launched from its launch pad, which originally represented a great success for SpaceX.

Musk congratulated his company's teams after the rocket took off, promising to conduct a new test "in a few months."

He tweeted, “Congratulations to the SpaceX teams on this amazing first experiment!” He added, “We learned a lot for the next test that we will be conducting in a few months.”

Earlier, Sunday, Musk said that this is the first flight of a "very large and complex missile," noting that this test is "fraught with great risks."

Musk believes that humans may need hundreds of "Starship" rockets in order to reach other planets. His ultimate goal is to establish an independent colony on Mars.