SpaceX's Latest Starship Test Flight Ends With Another Explosion (npr.org)
- Reference: 0176639889
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/07/0422209/spacexs-latest-starship-test-flight-ends-with-another-explosion
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/06/g-s1-52507/spacex-starship-test-flight-boca-chica-texas
> This time, wreckage from the latest explosion was seen streaming from the skies over Florida. It was not immediately known whether the spacecraft's self-destruct system had kicked in to blow it up. The 403-foot rocket blasted off from Texas. SpaceX caught the first-stage booster back at the pad with giant mechanical arms, but engines on the spacecraft on top started shutting down as it streaked eastward for what was supposed to be a controlled entry over the Indian Ocean, half a world away. Contact was lost as the spacecraft went into an out-of-control spin.
>
> Starship reached nearly 90 miles in altitude before trouble struck and before four mock satellites could be deployed. It was not immediately clear where it came down, but images of flaming debris were captured from Florida, including near Cape Canaveral, and posted online. The space-skimming flight was supposed to last an hour. "Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now," SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot said from the launch site. SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced "a rapid unscheduled disassembly" during the ascent engine firing. "Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses," the company said in a statement posted online.
You can watch a recorded livestream of the launch [3]on X .
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/06/g-s1-52507/spacex-starship-test-flight-boca-chica-texas
[2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2357225/starship-rocket-breaks-up-mid-flight-but-spacex-catches-booster-again-after-launch
[3] https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1897438948458189156
Karma's a Bitch (Score:2)
Elon Musk can rot in hell.
Re: Karma's a Bitch (Score:2)
Your MDS must hurt real bad
Re: (Score:1)
Your lack of judgment and inability to see danger right in front of your face will hurt real bad. At some point.
Re: Karma's a Bitch (Score:1)
Was waiting for the sheep to show up and start bleeting. You know it is possible in this world for some people to think someone is a bit of an idiot and simultaneously marvel at their technological achievements. You should try it some time. Itâ(TM)s amazing what happens when you donâ(TM)t rely on the internet to tell you what your opinion is.
Re: Karma's a Bitch (Score:1)
Also Hitler did done nice paintings, but I do not hand them in my house cause he was fucking Hitler.
Re: Karma's a Bitch (Score:2)
Children... children! Behave. Now finish your vegetables.
it's far more than the right arm (Score:2)
I would be more concerned about his actual far-right / white supremacist tweets, as well as use of symbols from such movements. And very outspoken support for far-right groups, including AfD which in some regions in Germany is classified as a anti-constitutional far-right extremist groups, by court decisions based on constitutional writings specifically made to avoid getting a Nazi party to reappear.
Re: (Score:2)
I am another marveller (sp?). I would rather visit Starbase than any cathedral or mountain.
But:
"Bit of an idiot" = Me misspelling a Slashdot post
Demented genius = Someone helping Trump kill Ukrainians, edge us towards World War III and destroy the planet's climate.
I think Kimbal Musk used to reign in Elon's lunacy.
Can he not save us now?
Re: Karma's a Bitch (Score:2)
How is he helping destroy Ukraine people, how is he helping going to WW3, and how is he helping destroy the climate? You really have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah he may be an asshole, but he isn't doing any of the things you accuse him off.
Re: (Score:2)
"You really have no idea what you're talking about. "
Re: (Score:2)
I found space flight more fascinating when it was a publicly funded scientific endeavor for the benefit of all mankind, not just a means for the richest man on the planet to become richer.
Good (Score:1, Troll)
Until this launch I watched every Starship launch live in sheer admiration of what the engineers there have accomplished. Then Musk went full nazi. Nobody wants space nazis. Nobody. Hope every launch explodes until he's bankrupt. I just feel sorry for the poor engineers working for that tyrant.
Re: (Score:2)
I feel the same, and wonder how many of Spacex's very hard-working engineers do too, and are consequently not giving it 110% (sic) any more.
There is a big difference ( for me for sure ) between working at something you have to do and working at something you really want to do well.
Trouble is, this will affect Spacex's, and mankind's, amazing progress in space, but I fear it will do nothing to get Musk to reign back Trump and save the lives of Ukrainians and help stop global warming.
Re: Good (Score:3)
The people who worked on the last V2 knew exactly who they were working for.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Yeah, and thanks to those people the US actually has a space program. So stop being a hypocrite as a lot of todays technology and progress is thanx to nazi scientists.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Yeah put me on the side of not ever having Nazis would have been worth not gaving whatever the fuck the space program has been good for.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course. No sane person would trade 70 million lives for the space program.
But what the space program that we did get is now good for is what Musk says - making intelligent life in the universe a little more likely to survive by helping make mankind multi-planetary.
I see that as a duty of intelligent beings.
Re: (Score:2)
I like to think that clever people will support what is right when they have enough information to decide correctly. Otherwise there is no hope for the world.
And no intelligent person can say that letting Russia invade Ukraine and keep the land it stole is right.
No intelligent person can say that we do not have to limit global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
Fucking space nazis. I knew Iron Sky was a documentary.
I said lunch (Score:2)
Not launch. Boom goes the dynamite.
Finally... (Score:3, Informative)
It's nice to see Elon blow up $5 billion dollars worth of wasteful government subsidies to SpaceX!
Re: Finally... (Score:2)
Sorry can not fucking fucking understand what you are fucking fucking saying with all that fucking AC cock in your fucking mouth.
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't a waste, it's our best chance at getting Elon off this world and abandoning these worthless rich arseholes on Mars.
I want to see SpaceX succeed (Score:2)
Because then, hopefully, Elon Musk will emigrate to Mars!
ISS (Score:2)
We may want to hold on to ISS a little longer. If he says he'll get it operational in two years it may be a Trumpuan hyperbole. You know, for the good of the people.
Ended in data, not failure. (Score:1, Funny)
SpaceX's eighth Starship test flight ended in failure
No, it ended in data.
Which can lead to full success when you keep trying.
Catching the booster alone was a big deal because that had not been done before, only second stage.
The important thing is how fast they can iterate based on whatever data they gather, and it seems like they can iterate rapidly now.
Re: Ended in data, not failure. (Score:2)
They missed Mar-a-Lago
Re:Ended in data, not failure. (Score:5, Informative)
Very expensive data!
Re: Ended in data, not failure. (Score:1)
At least they may be able to reuse the booster for another test.
Re: (Score:2)
Not that I could afford it. But compared to a Starliner or SLS test? It's a bargain.
Re: (Score:3)
> No, it ended in data.
Sweet! You've just redefined every rocket failure in history to data!
I love these rules.
Re: (Score:2)
It was supposed to fly to the Indian Ocean for a controlled re-entry, half the world away. Instead it exploded shortly after takeoff over Florida. It didn't even get close to what it was supposed to test. Tests are supposed to test certain parameters, not explode randomly at the start. This makes it a failure.
I know, it's hard, but you can learn.
Re: (Score:2)
They'd have much ore data if it hadn't gone bang.
At some point you really do have to acknowledge that Starship is currently failing. Yes, they'll probably turn it round unless they run out of money, but they re years late.
Re: (Score:2)
> SpaceX's eighth Starship test flight ended in failure
> No, it ended in data.
> Which can lead to full success when you keep trying.
> Catching the booster alone was a big deal because that had not been done before, only second stage.
> The important thing is how fast they can iterate based on whatever data they gather, and it seems like they can iterate rapidly now.
You say that as if half your launches ending in a giant fireball of data is something normal and acceptable that shoudl happen as often as possible during the development phase. Say what you will about Ariane, they've had nine major launch failures and four partial ones since 1979 out of two hundred and sixty three launches across all Ariane variants. SpaceX has had five launch failures out of eight launches since 2023 and that's just counting Starship. Even during it's worst year Ariane only had four major
Re: Ended in data, not failure. (Score:2)
Uhm, you're comparing test flights to production flights. SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the production flights, have way more flights the Ariane has over all its types. And Ariane still hasn't got a reusable version. Ariane is just like SpaceX Heavy Booster, a rocket to put something up there, and in regard the Heavy Booster which puts Starship up there there are no real problems. It's Starship block 2 which seem to have a design problem as Starship block one didn't have this problem at ascentburn.
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, the list I referenced includes every Ariane launch including the maiden flight on Christmas eve 1979:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ariane_launches_(1979%E2%80%931989)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_1#Maiden_flight
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, if you're comparing with the launch failures of the entire Ariane family since 1979, you should do the same with all SpaceX rockets, not just a very experimental rocket that hasn't carried any useful payload yet. Please add Falcon 9 to your comparison, and see how it fares.
Re: Ended in data, not failure. (Score:2)
Uhm, catching the booster had been done twice before this flight. And yeah it was data, but this time it sure was a failure as for starship most if the items they wanted to check off weren't met.
Failure to get Valuable Data (Score:2)
> No, it ended in data.
There are many ways to fail so data that tells you one way to avoid failing is much less valuable that data telling you one way to achieve success. So, even looked at from the data perspective, it's still a failure.
Re: (Score:1)
One data point: apparently the debris got very close to commercial aircraft; the exclusion zone was too small.
That's one of the points that the former head of the FAA was making. But now that Musk got him fired, we're apparently just going to ignore that data point.