First, the excellent news: SpaceX efficiently ignited all six engines on its Starship S24 prototype throughout a static fireplace check.
Picture by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP through Getty Photos
Now the unhealthy. The check induced a super-hot hailstorm of particles to scatter a whole bunch of ft away from the rocket, inflicting a brush fireplace that “started to burn unusually aggressively, shortly rising into partitions of flames that sped throughout the terrain,” in accordance with the web site Teslarati.
The fireplace raged in all instructions, finally discovering its option to, you guessed it, a SpaceX dumpster, which burned for hours. Native fireplace crews had been known as to Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, to place out the hearth. A video of the incident may be discovered on YouTube.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has not commented publicly on the mishap. However he has touted the large new Starship as a automobile that may transport people to the moon, Mars, and past. It is “a generalized transport mechanism for the higher photo voltaic system,” stated Musk.
Starship is powered by Raptor engines, an enormous first-stage booster known as Tremendous Heavy, and a 165-foot-tall upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship.
SpaceX is gearing up for a landmark Starship orbital mission later this 12 months.
