Elon Musk’s SpaceX starship rocket bound for Mars explodes during “successful” test

Elon Musk has declared we’re on our way to Mars despite the “awesome” test of his company’s experimental rocket ending in a huge explosion.

A high altitude test of the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX has been heralded as a success, despite the rocket exploding as it touched back down to Earth.

Company founder Elon Musk declared “Mars, here we come” following the test on Thursday morning.

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Mars, here we come!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020

After a failed launch, the rocket took off on Thursday morning.

The rocket ascended to almost 13 kilometres above Earth.

Raptor auto-abort at T-1 second

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 8, 2020

The rocket took off from the Boca Chica, Texas facility of SpaceX after a launch earlier this week was aborted at the last second before lift-off.

The Starship rose to an altitude of almost 13 kilometres before coming back down.

On descent, rockets on the experimental ship went out as planned and the Starship rotated.

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The Starship floating back towards the Earth.

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The landing method has previously been billed as mimicking a skydiver.

It rotates into a horizontal position and begins falling back to Earth before rockets turn back on closer to the ground to bring the ship back upright.

The Starship dramatically exploded when it touched back down.

A huge fireball engulfed the rocket on landing.

Six minutes and 42 seconds after it took off the rocket returned to Earth with a bang.

Presumably the intention is not for it to explode on impact in the future, but that wasn’t the point of today’s test.

Mr Musk heralded the test a success because despite the explosion, the company got all the data it needed.

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020

It was an "awesome test" that resulted in a massive explosion.

The Starship is central to SpaceX’s goal and core mission to colonise Mars.

Today’s test was aimed at seeing “how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform to the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle (including its body flaps), to how the vehicle manages propellant transition.”

This particular Starship, named SN8, was also slated to “attempt to perform a landing flip manoeuvre, which would be a first for a vehicle of this size”.

It appears it pulled off the manoeuvre but didn’t quite stick the landing.

“Success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn,” the company said on its website.

SpaceX has built 10 Starship prototypes, and SN9 is almost ready to go for further testing.