The SpaceX Starship made its first test flight today, but it was only half successful, failing when its engine stalled.
After today’s mission, Elon Musk tweeted his congratulations to the SpaceX team: an exciting Starship launch test that taught us a lot for the next launch test in a few months.
SpaceX said that the Starship’s test flight did not appear to be satisfactory enough and that the Starship spacecraft suffered an unplanned disintegration. The team will continue to review the data and work towards the next flight test.
According to Elon Musk, the SpaceX Starship’s first orbital mission was essentially a coin-flip play, with the $3 billion (currently about RMB 20.67 billion) spacecraft only having a 50% success rate on its first flight.
With a recoverable design and a single launch cost of around $2 million (currently around RMB 13.78 million), the Starship has the potential to revolutionise the space industry with its 100-tonne LEO capacity, which could reduce the cost of launching a payload into orbit to a staggering $10 per kilogram.
