SpaceX: Why did Elon Musk's Starship rocket explode? - BBC News

Spacex's Starship, the most powerful

rocket

ever built, blasted off from a launch pad off the South Texas coast this morning. The unmanned

rocket

explode

d in midair shortly after liftoff. SpaceX had previously warned that the chances of success were low and that the goal of this test. The flight was to collect data, the first part went well, the second part less so, it cleared the launch pad and for four minutes it picked up speed as it shot headlong into space, but then it began to spin before it burst into flames and collapsed. appeared to the amatero that is. mine is that he couldn't separate the two sections of the rocket system, the booster and cruiser couldn't separate, possibly causing the spacecraft to fail, let's get an expert opinion, science correspondent Jonathan Amos is with us, well, that was pretty spectacular.

Best fireworks I've seen this year definitely um but an expensive one why do you see it as a hit? I need to go back I need to retire I think so I mean, you know, he cleared the launch complex, which was um, you know the absolute basics, uh, that they had to accomplish that day and he went up into the sky, he got to an altitude of about 39 kilometers and then it started to lose altitude and came back down it was tumbling it said correctly it didn't break away like it was supposed to and then all rockets have what they call a flight termination system and these are these they're a series of charges that run down the side of the vehicle and you know if the computers see that the rocket isn't going the right way or if you know someone on the ground they can start those charges and destroy the vehicle and that's it and that's what that happened, so that's what the big bang SpaceX was about, I mean, this is its spirit, right?

I mean they test early and they test and they're not afraid to break things that's what they've done throughout the history of this company and they intend to continue that way, it's been very successful for them, um, you know, they're a Falcon 9 rocket now it's the dominant rocket huh I mean nobody understands them it launches every four days it puts 80 percent of all the satellites um you can't argue with their approach huh you know they didn't complete the flight plan today but actually I think they'll be pretty pleased with how far they got now that you said he told me the other day there were 33 engines below and he was looking very closely as a result of what you told me so below look this, right?

I was trying to count them, but you can see not all engines. they are on I think some of them failed would he be right yes would he be right yes absolutely right? i know again because the computers said it shut down something was wrong or the rocket launched with one or two huh actually off um but they certainly seem to have lost something in Flight huh too and that will be a concern for them who need getting reliability uh on those Raptor engines as they're called um if they're going to go ahead with this project so maybe you know that maybe that's what they're going to worry about the most after this flight is that they had uh so many uh of those engines fail um, You know, within the first few minutes of the flight, well, we'll have to see, I mean, I shouldn't have, it's dangerous, right?

I mean, if you have a flame like that, you could get a waterfall I think we discussed on Monday, yeah, you know where it runs along the ring, and before you know it, you've got another what. What is the phrase they use? It just means it blew up, yeah I'm getting you D and you're doing it. I'm getting better at this. I'm going to play the role of your Dr. Watson. obviously he had something to do with it, but let's talk about what you learned from that because we've seen a tweet from Bill Nelson, who's the administrator at NASA, and he seems pretty pleased with what they were. doing because as we say we have to put this in some perspective there were some people who didn't even think it would clear the rig yeah and Elon Musk was pretty worried about that too they have another uh in the shed literally in the shed uh behind of the launch complex here and a few others as well that are nearing completion um i mean i was looking at pictures uh after the launch complex itself the pad now normally big Rockets Rockets go with what's called a deluge system, so you've probably seen this when they're about to launch, they flood the launch pad with water to dampen the vibrations, the acoustic shock, all the rest, but this system they don't have one in there yet they were going to put one in there they haven't yet everything and there is a lot of damage to the concrete surfaces around this pad that they are going to have to repair they are going to have to do something and you know this is uh 70 mega newtons of power and heat going into the concrete and any water in that concrete is it will superheat instantly and the concrete will just

explode

you know you know it will just be thrown in all directions and that seems to have happened today so they'll have to address it but yeah NASA will be quite pleased I think they know they're seeing

musk

they know that progress, they will want to see by the end of the year that it has flown. at least two other of these I think and that actually orbits huh also top only on that issue Jonathan um my editor is sitting next to me this afternoon when we see this go up he said he knows

musk

is the biggest industrialist with the Rockefellers and the brunelles and he has a point when you look at everything he's done with SpaceX with Tesla with PayPal and now this is quite remarkable what a man has accomplished so you get characters like this through the story, right?

And what they do is change the nature of the conversation. like this and then everyone turns around and says oh yeah that's actually a really good idea you know Steve Jobs is another example of someone who came in and changed the nature of the conversation and the evidence of that is now in our pockets the smartphone the you know the iPhone um whatever um and yes he is you know he's done he's a disruptor there's no doubt he's changed attitudes towards electric cars um completely um you know if he hadn't done it that he and his partners had done it at Tesla um the car market would still look like it was 20 or 30 years ago um it's changed it's completely turned the rocket industry upside down I mean you know we have the situation now in Europe um where we're going to have to go to Elon Musk and tell him if he can launch our most important satellites for us because we really can't do it right at the moment, so yeah, it's a bit of a sorry state of affairs here in Europe in terms of rocketry. , well Jonathan you and I need a scheduled teardown because we're going on a break but thanks again for your expertise we'll keep an eye out for the next release and maybe talk some more huh Jonathan.

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