SpaceX has made an incredible snatch of its Super Heavy Booster during the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket , but has lost the vehicle . Launched at 5:37 p.m. ET today , Thursday January 16 , from SpaceX ’s installation in Boca Chica , Texas , this is only thesecond timethat the enormous booster of the Starship has been fascinate , as part of SpaceX ’s aim to create a reclaimable heavy ski tow vehicle .
However , the upper stage of the Starship — the part which should go into orbit and deploy payloads — seemed to have issues with its locomotive during its raise , and communication theory with it were lose around 10 minute after launch , around the time of master engine cut - off .
“ It successfully come apart , we did see that hot scaffolding manoeuvre and we did see all six of Ship ’s engines on the way uphill during its ascent , but as we were getting to the end of that ascension and burn we saw engines discharge out on telemetry , and we have since lost contact with the Ship , ” said SpaceX commentator Dan Huot . “ At this point , we are assuming that the Ship has been lost . ”
The Starship undertaking the trial run flight today was a blade newfangled fomite , with various alteration made to the ironware compare to premature examination flights , which play a range of risks .
“ We do believe we have lost the ship during its ascension phase , ” said Kate Tice , senior calibre engineering handler at SpaceX. “ But this was a new version of Starship , and it was deliberately contrive and fly in parliamentary procedure to test the gasbag , as we have done with every one of these test flights — the key word there being ‘ test ’ . And really trying to infer the boundaries and the maximum for the ability of this fomite to fly , and understand where those boundaries are . We always knew that excitation was guaranteed today — success , not guaranteed . ”
However , the SpaceX team still has something to lionize , as the booster station , or first stage , was successfully enamor at the Boca Chica facility . The separation of booster rocket and ship was successful , and booster came back in to the elephantine robot arms of the pillar , named Mechazilla .
Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster!pic.twitter.com / aq91TloYzY
& mdash ; SpaceX ( @SpaceX)January 16 , 2025
Even with the deprivation of the Starship , the SpaceX squad was positive they would continue development : “ It was great to see booster dose come down , but we are obviously bummed out about ship , ” said Huot . “ We obvisouly need to go through all the information . It ’s kick the bucket to take some metre . In the next hr or Clarence Shepard Day Jr. we ’re going to figure out precisely what happened , come in back , fly the next one , get even far … We ’ll visualize out what ended our solar day today and ensure it does n’t terminate our day tomorrow . ”
