First SpaceX booster for upgraded Starship fails during test in Texas

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By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A towering first-stage booster for an upgraded version of SpaceX’s Starship rocket suffered a predawn testing failure in Texas on Friday, potentially complicating the company’s push to prove the rocket’s moon-landing abilities for NASA, according to observers who captured it on video.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had rolled the upgraded stainless steel Super Heavy booster out to a testing pad on Thursday at the company’s Starbase rocket facilities, saying it intended to test its redesigned propellant systems and structural strength.

During a test on the pad around 4 a.m. CT Friday, a zoomed-in live video feed from SpaceX-watching group LabPadre showed the booster suddenly buckle and release a cloud of gas from its sides, indicating an explosion had blown open its exterior.

SpaceX in a statement acknowledged what it called an “anomaly during gas system pressure testing” and said there were no injuries. The mishap, SpaceX said, occurred before it was to test the booster’s structural strength.

“The teams need time to investigate before we are confident of the cause,” the company said.

SpaceX had hoped to fly the booster, as well as its Starship upper stage that was not involved in Friday’s test, early next year for the company’s 12th Starship flight demonstration since 2023. Friday’s mishap is likely to beset that target.

STARSHIP CENTRAL TO US MOON RACE

The company has faced pressure from NASA to advance its whirlwind Starship development program to a new phase of tests involving features related to the rocket’s future moon landings, a multibillion-dollar pair of missions for the U.S. space agency that would put the first humans on the lunar surface since 1972.

The mission has made Starship a central component of the U.S. moon program, which is increasingly pressed to achieve a landing before China does around 2030. NASA’s acting and prospective leadership camps have tussled over how best to return humans to the moon while China’s space program advances.

The booster that suffered the mishap on Friday was the first of Starship V3, an iteration of the rocket that SpaceX has said packs an array of new designs and features related to the moon program.

SpaceX is known for speedy production of multiple booster iterations as part of its capital-intensive test-to-failure ethos of rocket development. But it was unclear whether it readily had another V3 booster it could resume tests with, or by how many months the mishap could set back the Starship program.

Of the five Starship flight tests this year, the first three suffered complex and explosive setbacks before SpaceX resumed steady development progress in August, making for a bumpy year. Starship’s last flight in October was the final test before SpaceX moved to build the V3 version, which it hoped to fly in February 2026.

Starbase, the sprawling SpaceX Starship facilities in south Texas, has had multiple testing explosions in the past. A Starship booster exploded in a giant fireball on its testing pad in June, sending debris across the U.S.-Mexico border two miles (3.22 km) away and sparking political tension with the country’s president.

(Reporting by Joey RouletteEditing by Bill Berkrot)