The 7th test flight of the Musk Starship exploded and disintegrated! But the 'Chopstick Mechanical Arm' successfully recovered the booster for the second time

SpaceX’s Starship rocket, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s space exploration technology company SpaceX, exploded and disintegrated after 8 and a half minutes of its seventh test flight on the 16th. In order to avoid falling debris, dozens of flights flying over the Gulf of Mexico were forced to change course. However, although SpaceX lost the upper part of the rocket, the lower part of the rocket’s super heavy booster successfully landed and docked with the giant mechanical arm ‘Chopsticks’ on the launch pad. (Previous summary: Musk and Trump watched the sixth test launch of SpaceX’s Starship, the first time the engine was reignited in space, but the booster was not successfully recovered) (Background supplement: Musk: Send Starship to Mars within 2 years, build a Martian city within 20 years, what role does Blockchain play?) On the 16th, SpaceX conducted the seventh test flight of its heavy-duty transport rocket Starship. According to Bloomberg, this is an unexpected setback for SpaceX, as the company had made steady progress in improving the rocket’s performance. Despite the loss of the upper part of the rocket, the super heavy booster of the lower part of the rocket returned to the launch pad about 7 minutes after liftoff, slowly landed, and successfully docked with the giant mechanical arm ‘Chopsticks’ on the launch pad. This is SpaceX’s second successful recovery in three attempts. Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/aq91TloYzY — SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 16, 2025 Starship was launched from SpaceX’s interstellar base facility in Texas at 4:37 PM local time on Thursday. The original plan was for Starship to try to reach near-orbit speeds and deploy 10 simulated spacecraft, which simulate the size, shape, and weight of future upgraded SpaceX Starlink satellites, launched by Starship. This mission was originally Starship’s first attempt to deploy cargo in space, an important milestone for the rocket’s formal transportation. However, less than 8 and a half minutes after the mission started, SpaceX lost contact with Starship, and the launch commentator subsequently announced that Starship had ‘lost contact’. The explosion was caused by a fuel leak. Musk tweeted a video of debris falling from the sky, saying ‘Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!’ As for the cause of the crash, he later said that preliminary indications showed an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the engine firewall, and the scale of the leak was sufficient to exceed the exhaust capacity. However, there is currently no indication that the next launch needs to be postponed until after next month. This mission is the shortest Starship test flight since November 2023, when SpaceX lost Starship about 8 minutes after the second test flight. This explosion accident is an unexpected turn of events, as SpaceX has continued to make progress in Starship test flights, with each new launch attempt posing higher challenges. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for rocket launches and re-entry permits, said that there were ‘abnormalities’ during the Starship test flight. The FAA is evaluating the operation and has slowed down and changed the flight routes passing through the Starship debris drop area. It is worth mentioning that the day before this accident, Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Bezos, successfully sent the ‘New Glenn’ rocket into orbit. Blue Origin is trying to challenge SpaceX’s absolute dominance in the commercial space field. Related reports: Musk’s ‘Exile Dark 2’ permanent death meme coin big dump, I explained that it was played by a Chinese person named Longma Musk used Cybertruck as an emergency ‘mobile base station’ for California fires, deploying Starlink and free WiFi. SEC sues Musk for low-price acquisition of Twitter for ‘securities fraud’, FOX: Political manipulation is strongly implied. This article was first published on BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news media in the motion zone.