The huge Starship rocket took off this Thursday from the Spacex base in Texas (USA), but within a few minutes it lost contact and exploded as in the last January test, leaving debris in Florida that forced four airportsamong them that of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
The powerful ship took off at 18:30 local time (23:30 GMT) of the base in Boca Chica, in southern Texas, on the border with Mexico. The first stage of the rocket, the Super Heavy propeller, managed to return to the Starbase and be trapped by the tweezers, but the upper stage lost contact and exploded leaving remains in a large area of southern Florida and the Bahamas, according to videos hanging on social networks.
The company of the technological tycoon Elon Musk did not refer to the explosion of the Starship during this eighth test and, as always that these events happen, it called it a “rapid and unforeseen disassembly” after losing contact with the Operations Center in Texas.
In the seventh test, carried out on January 16, the same thing happened and was described as an explosion for several witnesses in the Caribbean, a region where debris went to stop and where air operations were altered.
This time Starship’s remains surprised drivers and passers -by in Florida who did not understand what was happening And they saw what they described as a “drifting ship.”
Residents of the Bay of Tampa in Madeira Beach and Tampa, on the west coast of Florida, reported having seen the explosion in the sky.
Four affected airports
The rain of rubble forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, in English) to order for about an hour the Restriction of flights at the airports of Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, In the south and center of Florida.
Tampa International Airport was not affected by the delay, but warned that two flights to Miami International Airport were diverted to that city on the west coast of Florida.
The outputs in the four airports were delayed on average about 45 minutes, according to FAA.
The agency activated an area of response to debris, briefly reduced the speed of the aircraft outside the area where the remains fell or stopped them in its exit.
The failed Starship had to fly in a suborbital trajectory for approximately one hour, after which he planned to merit in the Indian Ocean.
The Starship is designed to undertake long -range trips, capable of transporting large crew and satellites.
In these initial test flights, the idea is not to reach orbit but turn the planet and descend by the tail ahead and propelled by rockets in the Indian Ocean.
In these last two without success of Spacex, the company expected the deployment of payload, in this case four simulated Starlink satellites.
