SpaceX's Starship spacecraft exploded during testing on a stand in Texas, becoming another setback for Elon Musk's project related to plans to create a reusable spacecraft for flights to Mars.
Video recordings of the incident, which occurred on Thursday night, show how a powerful explosion enveloped the device, which was standing vertically on the Starbase base. Huge clouds of fire and smoke rose into the sky, and the blast wave shook windows and dishes in nearby houses, local media reported.
According to preliminary data, the rocket passed a standard test — the so-called static fire test, when the engines turn on when the rocket is fixed to the launch pad. These checks are carried out before the flight, so that engineers can work out the launch without putting the rocket into space.
SpaceX said in an official statement that Starship "encountered a serious anomaly" in preparation for its tenth flight test. There were no injuries, and there was also no threat to residents of the area.
The extent of the damage has not yet been specified. The incident was another in a series of failures of the Starship program, which plays a key role in NASA's plans to return American astronauts to the Moon, as well as in Musk's more ambitious projects to send people and cargo to Mars.
SpaceX has signed contracts with NASA worth about $ 4 billion to perform missions to land astronauts on the moon using Starship.
A month ago, Starship crashed in flight after a fuel leak and loss of control. This was the third consecutive unsuccessful launch: previous flights in January and March also ended with explosions a few minutes after liftoff over the Gulf of Mexico, which caused debris to fall and disrupted air traffic in the region.
Starship — the largest and most powerful launch vehicle in the world-is designed to deliver people to Mars and then return to Earth. Musk has stated that he wants to send Starship with robots made by Tesla Inc. to the Red Planet as early as 2026.
As Musk, the world's largest entrepreneur, moves away from active political activity in Washington, questions remain about how much time he can devote to the Starship and SpaceX project, as well as what changes he is ready to make to the company's structure to resume the full operation of the program.
