Spacex loses another spacecraft in the last launch

Seven weeks after an explosion sent pieces of a spacecraft launch vehicle falling to Atlantic, Spacex on Thursday launched its larger and more powerful rocket before losing contact with the spacecraft several minutes on the mission.

The spacecraft of more than 400 feet, driven by a super heavy reinforcement with 33 Raptor engines, was successful at 6:30 pm et of the spacex launch in its Starbase installation near Brownsville, Texas. But about nine minutes from the mission, the ship began to turn out of control. Several of their engines shot, and mission control lost contact with the ship.

There are no astronauts aboard the spacecraft. Spacex suspended its video feed from the launch without providing a location for the ship or where the debris could land.

In an X postSpacex said the vehicle “experienced a rapid unchanging disassembly.”

“We will review today’s flight test data to better understand the root cause,” the publication said. “As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve the reliability of the spacecraft.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will require Spacex to carry out an investigation into the accident.

Shortly after the launch, the land stops were initially broadcast at the Orlando International Airport, Palm Beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale on Thursday night due to space launch debris. FAA said normal operations then resumed.

The photos and videos shared on social networks showed possible rubble rockets scratching in the sky in Miami and in Turks and Caicos in the Atlantic.

While the spacecraft was lost, Thursday’s mission included the successful return and capture of super heavy reinforcement, one of the most technically challenging aspects of the mission.

This super heavy reinforcement of the first stage executed a controlled descent back to the launch tower, reducing the supersonic speeds before being caught by the robotic giant arms of the launch tower. The return and capture of the reinforcement of the first stage is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the mission.

He scored for the third time Spacex returned and caught the stage in Booster using the launch tower.

According to the company, Thursday’s flight test was designed to boost the spacecraft beyond the previous attempts. The mission was supposed to include the first implementation of Starship payload and multiple re -entry experiments to bring Spacex to recover the scenario superior to the launch site for an eventual capture. That would make Starship a completely reusable spacecraft. The company said the ship is designed for vertical take -off and land on any hard surface.

Unlike the Falcon 9 rocket of Spacex, which has been flying with a partially reusable design for years, Starship is designed to be totally reusable and capable of transporting crew and load in long -term interplanetary missions.

Spacex said Starship can also transport larger useful loads, such as satellites and cargo, than other launch vehicles currently in use and can support long -term missions to the moon and potentially Mars.

The company said the spacecraft will eventually be able to take up to 100 people on long -term interplanetary flights.

In January, Spacex also lost a Starship spacecraft after Mission Control announced that he had lost all communications with the spacecraft eight and a half minutes after he collapsed. The debris of the launch vehicle were seen later falling on Turks & Caicos in the Atlantic. The company believes that the strongest vibrations of the anticipated led to propeller leaks, which caused the ship to catch fire. The FAA slowed the flights in Florida and its surroundings for a while due to concerns about the debris that damages a plane.

For Thursday’s proof mission, Spacex said they incorporated several key updates to the spacecraft, including redesigned advance flaps to reduce exposure to re -entry heating, a 25% increase in the capacity of the propellers, allowing longer -duration missions and a better performance, and a fully reviewed plane system to improve reliability, for complex operations.

They also eliminated some of the protective heat tiles of the ship to test the vulnerable parts of the ship’s ship during the re -entry, while trying several variations of metal mosaics designed to protect the vehicle from extreme heat when it returns to the earth.