SpaceX's uncrewed prototype rocket failed to land safely on Tuesday after a test launch from Boca Chica, Texas, and engineers were investigating, SpaceX reported.
“It looks like we've lost all of the data from the ship,” SpaceX engineer John Insprucker said in a video broadcast of the rocket's flight tests. "We'll need to ask the team what happened."
The webcast was obscured by fog, making it difficult to see the vehicle landing. The wreckage of the spacecraft was found scattered about five miles (eight kilometers) from its landing site.
Starship was one of the prototypes of a heavy-duty rocket developed by billionaire Elon Musk's private space company to transport people and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the Moon and Mars.
The fully-fledged Starship rocket, which will be 394 feet (120 meters) high with a first-stage super-heavy booster, is SpaceX's next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle - the focus of Musk's ambition to make human space travel more accessible and routine. ...
The first Starship orbital flight is scheduled for the end of the year. Musk, who also heads the electric vehicle company Tesla Inc, said he intends to orbit Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon in his Starship spacecraft in 2023.
“It looks like engine 2 had trouble lifting and did not reach chamber operating pressure during landing, but in theory it wasn’t necessary,” Musk wrote on Tuesday after his SN11 test flight. “Something meaningful happened shortly after the landing started. Should know that it was once, we can study the pieces later .. "
