Last Saturday, SpaceX launched the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, the Starship, whose two modules successfully separated before an “anomaly” caused the explosion, Elon Musk’s company said.

“Starship successfully took off under the impetus of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor engines and reached the separation phase” of its two stages, SpaceX wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The 400-foot rocket took off from SpaceX’s base in Boca Chica, Texas, shortly after 7 a.m. local time (1 p.m. GMT).

The Starship module, positioned at the tip of the rocket, successfully separated from the Super Heavy booster module, but both parts of the rocket exploded before beginning their planned descent, SpaceX said.

The rocket consists of two stages: the Super Heavy propulsion stage and its 33 engines, and the Starship spacecraft.

During the first test, the two stages could not be separated during the flight, but this Saturday they could.

The American aviation regulator FAA stated in a statement that an “incident” had occurred during the flight.

“The anomaly caused the loss of the machine,” the agency added, specifying that no injuries or other property damage were reported.

“The FAA will monitor the investigation conducted by SpaceX” to determine the causes of the incident, the agency also said, which must approve the conclusions of the investigation and the corrective actions SpaceX will implement before any action can be taken. permission is given for a new launch.

For space analyst Laura Seward Forczyk, “it was a fantastic partial success.” This launch “exceeded my expectations,” he told AFP.

This second SpaceX test flight was closely watched by NASA, which has this ship for its return missions to the moon.

U.S. Space Agency Director Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on Saturday for the “progress” made on this launch, referring to an “opportunity to learn and then fly again.”

On April 20, Starship took off for the first time in its full configuration, but several engines malfunctioned and SpaceX deliberately blew up the rocket four minutes later.

Chunks of concrete were thrown by the force of the engines and a fire broke out in a nearby regional park. The FAA finally gave the green light for a second flight on Wednesday.

However, conservation groups have sued the FAA for improperly evaluating the environmental impacts of the new rocket.

For SpaceX, the explosion of prototypes is less problematic than for NASA, which is run with state money, experts point out.

But spacecraft development does not appear to be moving fast enough to meet the plans of NASA, which has signed a contract with SpaceX.

A modified version of the spacecraft will serve as a lunar lander to take astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972.

This mission, called Artemis 3, is officially scheduled for 2025, a date that seems increasingly unrealistic.

Musk wants to make Starship a means of transportation to any destination in the solar system, including Mars.

The goal is to establish an autonomous colony on the red planet, to turn humanity into a multiplanetary species.

If Starship’s size is “absurd,” he explains, it’s because building a “permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars” would require moving millions of tons of cargo.

The spacecraft is larger than NASA’s new mega rocket, SLS (98 m), and the legendary Saturn V, the rocket of the Apollo moon program (111 m).

But Starship’s real innovation is that it should be completely reusable. (JO)