Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship booster rocket exploded in a test.
(Picture: AP)Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket exploded during a test on Monday at the company’s Starbase facility in Texas.
The Super Heavy Booster 7, known as B7, exploded during a spin start test of all 33 Raptor engines onboard–and it was caught on camera in NasaSpaceFlight’s live stream.
The B7 rocket is a prototype of Super Heavy, which is being developed for the first orbital test flight of the Starship deep-space transportation system, which SpaceX intends to launch in the coming months.
It’s made up of two parts: the Super Heavy is the first-stage booster and the Starship is the upper-stage spacecraft. They will be powered by the new Raptor engine–Super Heavy will have 33 and Starship will have six.
But the Super Heavy booster exploded in a test on Monday when an “engine spin start test” did not go to plan.
Musk explained why the explosion happened on Twitter and said: “Cryogenic fuel is an added challenge, as it evaporates to create fuel-air explosion risk in a partially oxygen atmosphere like Earth. That said, we have a lot of sensors to detect this. More later.”
In response to someone who asked if “it be possible to maybe burn/evaporate the leaks caused before ignition,” Musk said, “That is one of the things we will be doing going forward.
“This particular issue, however, was specific to the engine spin start test (Raptor has a complex start sequence). Going forward, we won’t do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once.”
On how much damage was done to the engines, Musk said: “Base of the vehicle seems ok by flashlight. I was just out there about an hour ago. We shut down the pad for the night for safety. Will know more in the morning.”
He later added: “Was just up in the booster propulsion section. Damage appears to be minor, but we need to inspect all the engines. Best to do this in the high bay.”
