Elon Musk’s Starship, the world’s largest rocket, explodes on test flight

The gigantic 152m tall SpaceX Starship exploded into a fireball minutes after takeoff on its first unpiloted test flight

The SpaceX Starship explodes after launch for a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023. Picture: AFP

READING LEVEL: GREEN

Elon Musk’s giant Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, exploded in a spectacular fireball on its historic first test flight.

The 152m tall SpaceX rocket blew up during the unpiloted* first test flight of the spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

While exploding about 29km above Starbase in Texas, the launch and 2010km/h flight speed were hailed* as a successful first test flight despite the failure of the Starship capsule to separate from the first-stage rocket booster.

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk inside the control room watching the SpaceX Starship lifts off. Picture: SpaceX / AFP

“Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months,” Musk tweeted.

SpaceX called the explosion a “rapid unscheduled* disassembly* before state separation*. As if the flight test was not exciting enough,” the company tweeted.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary*,” SpaceX tweeted.

SpaceX quality systems engineer added that their goal of clearing the launch tower was their “only hope” for the first launch of the rocket.

The US space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 — a mission known as Artemis III — for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

Members of the public walk through a debris field at the launch pad on April 22, 2023. The rocket successfully blasted and the Starship capsule had been scheduled to separate from the first-stage rocket booster three minutes into the flight but separation failed to occur and the rocket blew up. Picture: AFP

Starship consists of a 50m tall spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo that sits atop a 230 foot tall (70m) first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.

SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 massive Raptor engines on the first-stage booster in February but the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket were being flown together for the first time.

The integrated test flight was intended to assess their performance in combination.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk had warned ahead of the launch that technical issues were likely and sought to play down expectations for the inaugural* test flight.

“It’s a very risky flight,” he said. “It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket.

“There’s a million ways this rocket could fail,” Musk said.

GLOSSARY

• unpiloted: having no pilot on board
• hailed: to say publicly how good or important someone or something is
• unscheduled: not appointed, assigned, or designated for a fixed time
• disassembly: to come apart
• state separation: when strap-on boosters separate after use
• multi-planetary: relating to multiple planets
• inaugural: the first in a series of planned events

EXTRA READING

SpaceX junk crashes into Aussie farm at speed

Elon Musk blasts off on Twitter purchase

Splash down for space travellers after five months in orbit

QUICK QUIZ

1. How tall is the SpaceX Starship rocket?
2. Where was the rocket when it exploded?
3. How fast was the rocket travelling?
4. Even though it exploded, why was it classed as a success?
5. There are plans for the Starship to do what in late 2025?

LISTEN TO THE STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITY
1. Was it worth the risk?
Do you think that the integrated test flight was worth the risk? Use information in the story to write reasons or ideas that support your opinion on this question.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science

2. Extension
Do you know how rockets for space flights work? Use your research skills to help you to create a labelled diagram that will help a younger student understand this.

Time: allow 45 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science

VCOP ACTIVITY
Space mission
Write a creative story about a team of astronauts who are sent on a mission to the Moon or Mars using the SpaceX Starship.

Instructions:

• Begin your story by introducing your team of astronauts and describing their personalities, strengths and weaknesses.
• Explain the mission and the reason why your team has been chosen for this important task.
• Create tension and excitement by describing the journey to space and any technical difficulties or unexpected events that may occur.
• Use your imagination to describe the landscape of the Moon or Mars and any obstacles the team may encounter.
• Create a climax in the story by introducing a problem the team must solve to complete their mission.
• Finally, conclude the story by describing the team’s successful return to Earth and the impact of their mission on humanity.

Remember to use your VCOP skills to bring your story to life. Try including dialogue and descriptive language to enhance the vocabulary. Use punctuation such as talking marks to show when a character is speaking and paragraph breaks to make your writing easy to read. Don’t forget to revise your work for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.

Have fun and be creative!