Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its Starship rocket to space on Thursday, which suffered a mid-flight failure a few minutes into its flight.
On Monday, SpaceX delayed the first orbital launch of its Starship rocket after announcing the mission was scrubbed just 15 minutes before launch due to a “pressurization issue.”
The launch was rescheduled to Thursday, and did successfully take off before suffering a failure a few minutes later. The YouTube stream of the launch captures the failure just past 48 minutes in the video.
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This week, the company has been working to fix several unidentified issues in order to make its second attempt to launch out of a private facility in Texas on Thursday, according to a report by CNBC.
Years of regulatory work and technological testing led to the Starship orbital launch, which the company’s leadership have stressed is experimental in nature.
SpaceX had initially hoped to conduct its first-ever orbital Starship launch as early as summer 2021, but development setbacks and waiting on an FAA approval delayed those plans. The company ended up winning its FAA approval last week.
SpaceX’s Starship breaks up after its launch from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Thursday, April 20, 2023. SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The Starship rocket is designed to carry both people and cargo, and is crucial to NASA’s plan to have astronauts on the moon once again. In 2021, NASA announced that it had awarded a contract to SpaceX for nearly $3 billion.
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