SpaceX Starship rocket lost in second test flight

As Starship was set to enter the coast phase, SpaceX said it was unable to receive data from Starship's second stage.

This means the spacecraft "wouldn't be able wouldn't be able to come back in an hour or so and possibly get ready for reentry," according to the SpaceX live stream.

The company confirmed on its livestream that it was forced to trigger Starship's "flight termination system" — which is essentially a self-destruct feature that SpaceX engaged to prevent the Starship from traveling off course.

SpaceX ended the livestream shortly after.

The Super Heavy booster just blew up.

It wasn't supposed to do that. SpaceX was hoping to guide it to a controlled spalshdown in the ocean.

But the spacecraft — the crucial part — is still moving, blaring to faster speeds toward space.

The countdown clock struck zero and the Super Heavy booster attempted to light up its 33 engines, roaring to life and sending a deafening boom across the launch site.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just hit “Max Q,” an aerospace term that refers to the point during flight at which a vehicle experiences its maximum dynamic pressure.

Put simply: It’s when the rocket is moving at very high speed, at a time when the atmosphere is still pretty thick, putting a lot of pressure on the vehicle. 

The Super Heavy rocket has expended most of its fuel, and it just separated from Starship, which was riding atop the gargantuan Super Heavy booster.

This marks a crucial moment for SpaceX.

The company was attempting a new method for separating the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft mid-launch. Instead of using technical thrusters to push the two pieces apart, Starship ignited its own six Raptor engines — while the Super Heavy was still firing a few of its own — to forcefully push itself away.

Super Heavy is now heading back toward the ocean, where it will be discarded.

Starship is now continuing on its mission to space.

The first attempt to send Starship spaceward generated what Musk referred to as a "rock tornado" at liftoff as the sheer force of the rocket blew apart the launchpad. It spewed debris up to 20 acres outside the area that federal regulators initially expected.

And that all happened before the rocket exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.

In the hopes of avoiding a repeat, SpaceX has spent the last several months making some changes at the launchpad.

One key addition is a new water deluge system.

Essentially, it's a massive steel plate that has holes in it, allowing water to shoot up. The "massive super strong steel shower head" — again, Musk's words — will spray water when it's time for liftoff in order to dampen the jarring vibrations and heat given off by Super Heavy's monstrous engines.

The Federal Aviation Administration described the new system like this:

SpaceX's launchpad at Starbase — the name of the company's sprawling facility that has popped up by the Gulf of Mexico at the southernmost tip of Texas — has some unique features.

The large metal arms that look like they're giving the rocket a hug aren't a typical launchpad feature. SpaceX has a unique plan for this structure, which CEO Elon Musk has dubbed "Mechazilla."

Eventually, SpaceX hopes these arms will catch the Starship spacecraft mid-air as it flies back home from a trip to space.

That maneuver has never been tried before — but it's not entirely unlike the method SpaceX uses to land and recover its other rockets.

The company's Falcon 9 rocket pioneered propulsive landing: It became the first to complete a soft touchdown of its booster after a flight in April 2016.

It used its engines, a set of hardware called grid fins to steer itself, and four legs attached to the base to make a gentle landing on a seafaring platform, called a droneship.

SpaceX has since perfected the maneuver, with 230 booster landings under its belt. (And that doesn't even count Falcon Heavy booster landings.)

The main difference for Starship is that — instead of relying on landing legs — SpaceX plans to fly the rocket booster straight into Mechazilla's giant metal arms, catching it before it hits the ground.

SpaceX won't attempt to land Starship or Super Heavy today. Both will instead be discarded into the ocean.

But, before it hits the water, SpaceX will attempt to test out a landing maneuver by reigniting Super Heavy's engines.

That should happen about six minutes and 30 seconds into flight — if all goes well.

Later, the Starship spacecraft may attempt something similar, making use of a belly flop maneuver as it heads in for landing over an hour into its flight.

SpaceX is trying out something new today.

It's called "hot staging," which is a method for separating the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket after liftoff, when Super Heavy has burned through most of its fuel and is ready to break away.

Almost all rockets go through a process during launch called "stage separation," in which the bottommost rocket booster diverges from the rest of the rocket or spacecraft.

When SpaceX launches its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, for example, the first-stage booster — or the bottommost portion of the rocket — breaks away from the upper part of the rocket less than three minutes into flight.

The Falcon 9 does so using “pneumatic pushers" that are housed within the rocket's interstage. That's the black band that can be seen around the middle of the Falcon 9.

Starship, however, won't use pneumatic pushers. Instead, the Starship spacecraft will simply fire up its own six engines to push itself away from the Super Heavy booster.

Essentially, it's separation by blunt force trauma.

So, Starship's interstage has some large vents installed to direct the blow of the engines — aiming to make this method safe for the booster.

No one is quite sure whether all this will work.

Starship's attempt at hot staging should occur two minutes and 41 seconds into the mission.

SpaceX has started its live coverage of the launch. It's streaming on X — the website formerly known as Twitter, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased last year.

A viewing site in South Padre Island, which lies about 5 miles from the launch site is now lined with spectators. Small boats are circling the water nearby.

SpaceX has the option to hold the clock at T-40 seconds if boats don't clear out of the exclusion zone.

With only a 20-minute launch window today, however, the pressure is on.