SpaceX repeats stunning ‘chopsticks’ catch, but Starship explodes in test flight

Name: SpaceX repeats stunning ‘chopsticks’ catch, but Starship explodes in test flight
Uploaded: 2025-01-16T23:22:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 10 s
Description: SpaceX repeats stunning ‘chopsticks’ catch, but Starship explodes in test flight

Super Heavy booster successfully returns to launch pad, but top section of rocket experiences a ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’

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SpaceX repeats stunning ‘chopsticks’ catch, but Starship explodes in test flight

Agence France-Presse

Published: 7:22am, 17 Jan 2025Updated: 3:58pm, 17 Jan 2025

Hours after Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital mission, SpaceX seized back the spotlight on Thursday as its latest test of Starship, its gargantuan next-generation megarocket, ended with the upper stage dramatically disintegrating over the Atlantic.

In terms of sheer excitement, Elon Musk’s company didn’t disappoint, underscoring its technical prowess by catching the first stage booster in the “chopstick” arms of its launch tower for a second time.

But the triumph was short-lived when teams lost contact with the upper stage vehicle. SpaceX later confirmed it had undergone “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, the company’s euphemism for an explosion.

A taller, improved version of the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built blasted off from the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, at 4.37pm for its seventh test.

SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship and booster separate. Photo: AP

The gleaming prototype rocket is key to Musk’s ambitions of colonising Mars, while Nasa hopes to use a modified version as a human lunar lander.