SpaceX successfully launched this Thursday Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket in history with which billionaire Elon Musk intends to reach the Moon and, one day, Mars, but the ship failed to reach Earth orbit and exploded a few minutes later to take off from Texas.
"As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship rapidly disintegrated unscheduled before reaching the separation phase," the aerospace company explained in a message posted on the social network Twitter.
"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today's test will help us improve Starship's reliability as SpaceX tries to make life multiplanetary," he said.
The Starship rocket of the aerospace company SpaceX lifted off from a platform located in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023. Eric Gay / AP
The ship, which measures almost 400 feet (120 meters), took off at 9:33 a.m. (Eastern Time) from a platform located in Boca Chica, located in the southern tip of Texas and very close to the border with Mexico.
The launch window opened at 9:28 am EST.
The launch scheduled for Monday was postponed when a valve on the propellant stuck.
Musk, who followed the launch from SpaceX's control room, considered the rocket to have a 50/50 chance of reaching orbit on its debut.
The good conditions and the work of the engineers in recent days allowed the aircraft to take off without incident.
The first part of the rocket was to disengage over the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft was then to continue its journey eastward, flying over the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, landing near Hawaii after an hour and a half of flight.
SpaceX had reported that it would not recover any parts of the rocket.
The company plans to use the Starship to send people and goods to the Moon and eventually to Mars.
NASA has reserved a Starship for its next crew to go to the Moon, while the first space tourists who will travel to Earth's natural satellite soon have begun to be known.
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Hundreds of space fans returned this Thursday to the vicinity of the place from where the SpaceX rocket will take off to the launch site.
"I've been waiting for this for years," said Bob Drwal, a retired engineer who drove from Chicago, Illinois, with his wife, Donna.
The stainless steel Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7 million pounds of thrust.
All but two of the methane-fueled first-stage engines ignited in a launch pad test in January, just enough to reach orbit, Musk said.
Starship could lift up to 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars.
The six-engine craft is 164 feet (50 meters) tall.
Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites, including his Internet service's Starlinks, into orbit before sending a human into space.
The ship dwarfs the rockets in size
Saturn V of the Apollo program, which took humanity to the Moon, and the Space Launch System spacecraft of NASA's Artemis program, which intends to send the first woman to the satellite.
