Elon Musk’s Starship rocket made its landing ..until it blew up.
The latest heavy-duty launch vehicle prototype from SpaceX soared successfully into the sky in a high-altitude test blast-off on Wednesday from Boca Chica, Texas. Then it flew back to Earth to achieve the first upright landing for a Starship model.
However, the triumph was brief because slightly to one side of its fire-suppression system trained a stream of water on flames still burning at the base of the vehicle. This resulted in the spacecraft blowing into pieces about eight minutes after landing.
It was the third such landing attempt to end in a fireball after an otherwise successful test flight for the Starship, being developed by SpaceX to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.
A first orbital Starship flight is planned for the year’s end. Musk has said he intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon with the Starship in 2023.
