On its first test flight Thursday morning, SpaceX's massive, uncrewed Starship rocket roared off the launch pad, soared into the south Texas sky for a few minutes, but ultimately exploded into a trail of smoke.
The explosive end to the test — the latest in the company’s yearslong development program, but the first with the Starship spacecraft stacked atop the rocket’s Super Heavy first-stage booster — beat SpaceX’s publicly broadcast goals. The company had been careful to set expectations low for this flight. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk told an audience at a Morgan Stanley conference last month that the rocket’s debut had a 50% chance of success.
"Success today is anything that we learn that helps improve the future builds of Starship," Kate Tice, SpaceX quality systems engineering manager, said on the company's launch webcast. "If we lift off and clear the pad, we're going to have a win."
