The 394-foot-tall Starship, powered by 33 Raptor engines, took off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas at 9:33 AM EDT on April 20, 2023. Starship roared through the morning sky and gathered speed after takeoff. However, a few minutes into its flight, the massive stainless steel vehicle encountered an issue separating from its Super Heavy rocket booster. Starship started to spin at altitude and then exploded just under four minutes after launch. The explosion was described by SpaceX as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly." It was not immediately clear whether the rocket exploded spontaneously or if the Flight Termination System was activated. The two sections of the rocket system - the booster and cruise vessel - were unable to separate properly after takeoff, possibly causing the spacecraft to fail. The uncrewed sub-orbital test marked the first "fully stacked" trial in which the Starship cruise vessel was placed on top of the Super Heavy booster rocket. Despite the explosion, SpaceX has hailed the test flight as a success, stating that "success comes from what we learn, and today's test will help us improve Starship's reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary." Elon Musk congratulated the company following the launch on Twitter, adding that another Starship launch will follow in a few months. SpaceX had previously cautioned that the chances of success were low and that the aim of the test flight was to gather data, regardless of whether the full mission was achieved.
