Earlier we saw SpaceX founder Elon Musk sitting in the company control room as his team prepared for the Starship’s launch.
Afterwards, Musk tweeted his congratulations to the team for “an exciting test launch”.
While the Starship did explode a few minutes after take-off, Musk said his team “learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months”.
One minute and 15 seconds after the launch, the SpaceX stream showed the visuals from the camera below the Starship.
And in this grab, it shows only 27 of the 33 engines it has lighting up
So far there is no word on the number of engines that were firing at the moment of liftoff, although by mid-test it was cleaer six engines had shut down
SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 massive Raptor engines on the first-stage booster in February but the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket were being flown together for the first time today.
The gigantic rocket successfully blasted off from Texas, but exploded minutes later when booster separation failed.
