SpaceX’s prototype, Starship SN8, crashed in a fiery explosion while attempting to land in a test launch.
SN8 was the company’s hope to become its go-to for Mars missions. Despite of the crash, Elon Musk tweeted “AWESOME TEST. CONGRATS STARSHIP TEAM!”
Musk explained immediately that the rocket’s “fuel header tank pressure was low” during descent, “causing touchdown velocity to be high”. He also mentioned that they had obtained “all the data we needed”.
The Starship project was a $135M project awarded by Nasa to SpaceX, to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.