In a fiery landing, a SpaceX prototype ship returned to earth, crashing when it returned on Wednesday during the aerospace company’s test launch.
For a high-altitude test flight Wednesday in Cameron County, Texas, the company live-streamed the launch of its unmanned Starship spacecraft with a Super Heavy rocket. SpaceX, founded and run by Elon Musk had completed the Starship’s two low-altitude flights before launch on Wednesday.
Shortly after the explosion of the prototype, Musk tweeted, congratulating the SpaceX team for gathering the data required.
“Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed!” Musk tweeted.
“Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah,” he added.
SpaceX’s website reiterated Musk’s description of the events following the launch, noting that the high-velocity touchdown resulted in a “hard (and exciting!) landing.” The spaceship still “successfully ascended, transitioned propellant and performed its landing flip maneuver” prior to the explosion.
“Congratulations to the entire Starship and SpaceX teams on today’s test!” the company said.
According to the company’s website, SpaceX’s Starship model is designed to deliver satellites into orbit at a lower cost than its current Falcon versions. The page on the company’s website dedicated to Starship said that the product would represent a positive move towards a fully reusable transport system,” but seemed to mitigate expectations for the launch.
“With a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances the development of Starship,” the site said.
In May, SpaceX had its Crew Dragon capsule launched successfully, which carried astronauts to the International Space Station. The launch marked the first time that a private company’s commercial vehicle transported NASA astronauts into space.
On Wednesday, the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.