Sounds like a proper test. But annoying that Musk's name has to be plastered over every headline related to Xitter, Tesla Motors, Starlink and SpaceX.

So the booster worked in that it achieved lift off and properly separated. Did the other stages complete their jobs? Because this looking like it's only a failure in the sense that the booster didn't do the cool we-live-in-the-future part of flipping itself over and landing.

Well done to Musk and team for what most people would deem a huge success. Great to see. Really fun to watch and follow space x huge successes over the years.

Sorry it goes against the narrative and people can't enjoy how great this is.

It is quite the accomplishment to get to the Karman Line though so credit to SpaceX's engineers.

Here's a pre-launch article in case anyone wants to compare pre-launch expectations to reality.

While this test was much more successful than the last one, it shows it will be at least a couple years before starship is fully operational at this rate if development and who knows when they'll be able to get it crew rated.

So I'm already willing to bet artemis 3 gets delayed by at least a year while starship gets developed, which is a big shame.

Gotta love that "Starship breaks the sound barrier during launch" image with the shockwaves visible. NO that is not what happens because the sound barrier was broken, the rocket was already going trans- or supersonic and the resultant shockwaves became visible briefly due to atmospheric conditions. Shockwaves do not spontaneously become visible at the point of transition.

Nonetheless we're going to see that image pasted over and over on social media stating that it's the transitional indication of breaking the sound barrier.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

SpaceX’s gargantuan deep-space rocket system, Starship, safely lifted off Saturday morning, but ended prematurely with an explosion and a loss of signal.

About two and a half minutes after roaring to life and vaulting off the launchpad, the Super Heavy booster expended most of its fuel, and the Starship spacecraft fired its own engines and broke away.

“The automated flight termination system on second stage appears to have triggered very late in the burn as we were headed down rage out over the Gulf of Mexico,” aerospace engineer John Insprucker said.

NASA is investing up to $4 billion in the rocket system with the goal of using the Starship capsule to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface for its Artemis III mission, currently slated to take off as soon as 2025.

The endeavor is aiming to return humans to the moon for the first time in five decades, and the successful completion of this test flight would bring the US space agency and SpaceX one step closer to that goal.

During that test flight, several of the Super Heavy’s engines unexpectedly powered off and the rocket began spiraling out of control just minutes after liftoff.

The original article contains 540 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

They blowed up good

Blowed up real good