A booster from space company SpaceX has exploded during a test in the US state of Texas, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirms. A video of the explosion is also posted on Twitter. “This is not good. The team is looking at the damage,” Musk tweeted.
The first stage of the vehicle, the so-called Super Heavy Booster 7, is a component with 33 rocket engines. In the future, this booster will bring the second stage of the Starship spacecraft into orbit.
Starship’s second stage, which will carry thousands of Starlink’s satellites into space, was not yet on the booster when it exploded.
Starship is the largest rocket ever built. Musk hoped that the Starship would make its first test flight into space in July, but that has become uncertain due to the explosion of the booster.
The video footage shows a large fireball after the explosion. An hour later smoke was still coming from the booster. According to website Gizmodo It is not yet known if anyone was injured in the explosion.
The blast happened around the same time that NASA and US President Joe Biden showed the first color image taken by the James Webb telescope.
SpaceX currently carries cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station, but the company’s goal is to facilitate the colonization of the planet Mars.
Starship must become the vehicle that ‘set foot’ on the red planet. The rocket should also enable commercial flights to the moon.