Starship, the spacecraft developed by the US space transportation company SpaceX, was launched today in the US state of Texas. The Starship spacecraft exploded after the launch at 07.30 local time. The test flight, which did not include an astronaut crew and was planned to last approximately 90 minutes, ended approximately 2.5 minutes after the launch, after the explosion in the ‘second stage’ section.
“WE ARE DOING THESE EXPERIMENTS TO LEARN A LESSON AND TO SEE OUR MISTAKES”
John Insprucker, one of the engineers of SpaceX, said in his statement after the explosion: “We are doing these experiments to learn lessons and see our mistakes. In the test carried out today, all 33 engines of the rocket worked successfully during launch. “We believe that the explosion in the second stage of the flight occurred due to the delay in deactivation of the automatic flight termination system.”
In the statement made by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which inspects commercial launch sites, it was stated that an accident occurred that “resulted in the loss of the vehicle” and that there was no loss of life, and that an investigation was launched into the accident.
Before today’s launch by SpaceX, it was seen that 3 different rockets, apart from Starship, were preparing to be launched in the near future at the launch site.
In the first launch attempt of SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, last April, the Starship rocket exploded and fell into the Gulf of Mexico approximately 4 minutes after takeoff due to a malfunction in the engines. Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, was subject to intense criticism due to the debris that formed in the Gulf of Mexico after the first unsuccessful attempt. (UAV)