That was one hell of a landing.
SpaceX ran a high-altitude suborbital flight test of its Starship rocket on Wednesday. In the video above, the rocket launches at the 1:48:17 minute mark, and for a few glorious minutes flies high before attempting a vertical landing back on Earth.
Ouch.
Credit: spacex
At the 1:54:58 mark, Starship touches back down in Cameron County, Texas — with explosive force.
Boom.
Credit: screenshot / spacex
"Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point," wrote SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after the test flight.
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The reason for the explosion, according to Musk, is that the touchdown velocity was "high" (which, yes). Even so, the CEO says SpaceX got the data it needed and that the test flight was a success.
