Aviation regulators will divert flights from four Florida airports to avoid falling debris.
SpaceX’s spacecraft exploded shortly after taking off at Elon Musk’s interplanetary exploration program’s second launch obstacle this year.
However, the mask’s rocket company was able to successfully return the mammoth’s first-stage booster to the launchpad following Thursday’s test flight, catching it with a third huge mechanical “chopsticks.”
SpaceX’s live stream showed the spacecraft spinning out of control just minutes after lifting off from its launch site in Bocachica, Texas.
“We can see that we lost some engines and lost control of the vehicle’s attitude,” SpaceX Communications manager Dan Huot said during the live stream.
“If you lose enough of these center engines, you lose attitude control,” Huot added.
“So we saw the ship start to spin, and at this point we lost contact with it.”
Footage posted on social media revealed that the Bahamas were striped as the fiery debris crossed the sky in South Florida and the Bahamas were re-incorporated into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily suspended flights to four Florida airports, including Miami International Airport, due to falling debris.
The aviation regulator said it had launched an “accident investigation” to determine the root cause of the event and identify corrective actions to prevent it from happening again.
The mixed results came after SpaceX’s seventh test flight in January ended with the split of the spacecraft’s mid-flight, forcing the airline to deflect the flight to avoid falling debris.
In a failed launch statement on Thursday, SpaceX said the space vehicle “experienced a rapid, unplanned demolition” before contact was lost.
“Our team immediately began coordination with safety personnel and implemented pre-planned emergency response,” the company said in X.
“We will review and understand the data from today’s flight tests to better understand it. [the] The underlying cause. As always, success comes from what we have learned, and today’s flights offer additional lessons to improve the reliability of Starships. ”
NASA has signed up for SpaceX to develop a spacecraft for use in the Artemis program, which aims to bring the 10-year astronauts back to the moon.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, wants to use the spacecraft to realize his long-standing vision of establishing a permanent colony on Mars by 2050.
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