The sleek mega rocket is vital to NASA's plans for landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade -- and Elon Musk's hopes of eventually colonizing Mars. Two prior attempts have ended in spectacular explosions.
Progress in Starship test launch, but ship and booster explode
"Such an incredibly successful day," a SpaceX announcer said. "Even though we did have a… rapid unscheduled disassembly of both the Super Heavy Booster and the ship." The largest rocket ever built blasted off from the company's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas shortly after 7:00 am local time.SpaceX rocket leaves trail of debris, craters at Texas base
During takeoff, SpaceX video showed a hail of debris being blasted as far as the Gulf of Mexico, over 1,400 feet (420 meters) away. After Thursday's test, Musk said that SpaceX had begun building "a massive water-cooled steel plate to go under the launch mount.
Musk all the way: Pope loses Twitter verification Tesla’s stock fall, rocket explodes
Shares of Tesla slumped after reporting a drop in quarterly earnings and hinting the Musk-led company could face further profit pressures from more price cuts on its vehicles. As Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX deal with turbulence, Musk is a common denominator, noted independent tech analyst Rob Enderle.
SpaceX Starship, world’s biggest rocket, explodes during first flight test
Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, exploded during its first flight, but Elon Musk congratulated his SpaceX team on an "exciting" test of the spacecraft. The uncrewed rocket disintegrated minutes after successfully blasting off at 8:33 am Central Time (1333 GMT) from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica,...
SpaceX test-fires engines of massive Starship rocket booster
Giant sheets of orange flames erupted from the base of the rocket and clouds of smoke billowed into the air during the test-firing, which lasted several seconds. The 230-foot (69-meter) Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing to prevent it from lifting off.
