Elon Musk has just taken another loss. The entrepreneur’s SpaceX rocket exploded during its first test flight.
As spotted on CNN the investor may need to rethink his latest idea. On Thursday, April 20 his Starship fell apart midair causing an explosion at a South Texas launchpad. Billed as “the most powerful rocket ever built” the craft seemed to suffer from poor craftmanship as pieces of it fell off prior to scheduled timing. “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation” a tweet read from the SpaceX account.
The Federal Aviation Administration also released a statement regarding the technical problems. “An anomaly occurred during the ascent and prior to stage separation resulting in a loss of the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage have been reported”. The agency also confirmed they will investigate into what caused the craft to explode. “The FAA will oversee the mishap investigation of the Starship / Super Heavy test mission. A return to flight of the Starship / Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. This is standard practice for all mishap investigations.”
As expected Elon Musk spun the fail into a positive saying “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months” in a post to social media. You can see SpaceX lift off and explode seconds later, similarly to what he did to Twitter after he acquired it, below.
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Photo: Getty