After a test on Monday night at its Boca Chica development center in Texas culminated in a catastrophic explosion, SpaceX’s Starship program ran into a problem. The space company used a prototype of the Super Heavy rocket for the test, which is intended to give the additional lift required to launch its Starship spacecraft into orbit and beyond.
This booster prototype is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s massive Raptor engines, and the test was created with the intent of spinning up the engines to simulate the startup sequence for an actual launch. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, initially tweeted that the obviously disastrous test had concluded as predicted, but he swiftly deleted that statement and then said it was “not good.”
Holy moly. Well, that was unexpected!https://t.co/dUUqw7ojRv pic.twitter.com/7IGztPuE12
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) July 11, 2022
Although this event may delay an already-delayed schedule, Starship is hoping to conduct its first orbital flight test this year. The necessary environmental assessment of the effects of launching Starship from SpaceX’s so-called Starbase site in Boca Chica was repeatedly postponed by the FAA. The report was finally made public in June and called for SpaceX to take a number of mitigation measures while largely approving the proposed flight activities.