SpaceX’s Starship rocket explodes shortly after launch

Despite what Nicki Minaj told us in her 2012 hit single, it appears not all Starships are meant to fly.

Thursday morning, SpaceX’s Starship rocket successfully lifted off from its South Texas launchpad, a feat for what the company has billed as the most powerful rocket ever built. Still, minutes later, sparks flew and the rocket exploded above the Gulf of Mexico. No people were on board.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder, hinted ahead of the launch that an explosion was a possibility, saying there was a 50% chance of success.

“I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement,” Musk said at the Morgan Stanley Conference last month. “[It] won’t be boring!”

Musk said Thursday that it could take several tries before Starship has a successful run. A successful test flight would mean the rocket would reach speeds fast enough to enter orbit and complete nearly a full lap of the planet before splashing down near Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

Just getting off the launchpad marked a major success. SpaceX employees cheered and sprayed a bottle of champagne.

During a Sunday Twitter Spaces session, Musk said the biggest concern for Starship would have been if it “fireballed” and melted the launch pad, which would cause damage that would take months to rebuild. According to The New York Times, the launchpad appeared to be “largely intact.”

SpaceX is now looking to its next test flight, informed by data collected during Starship’s roughly four-minute flight.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn,” SpaceX said in a tweet Thursday after the rocket exploded. “Today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary.”

Musk says Starship’s ultimate goal is to send humans to Mars for the first time. NASA has plans to use a version of the rocket to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in 50 years.