SpaceX Starship suffers testing setback
HOUSTON —
The first prototype of SpaceX’s next-generation launch system
was damaged Nov. 20 during a tanking test, a setback the company claimed would not serious affect their development plans.
Video from several observers in the vicinity of SpaceX’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville,
showed a white plume erupt from the top of the Starship Mark 1 vehicle undergoing a pressurization test there at about 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
That eruption
blew off part of the bulkhead from that section of the vehicle, which could be seen falling back to the ground several seconds later.
The vehicle,
not fully assembled at the time, was undergoing a series of tests that, at the time, most believed would lead to an initial suborbital flight of the vehicle in the near future.
The vehicle remained standing and the extent of the damage, beyond the ejected bulkhead, was not immediately known.
“The purpose of today’s test was to pressurize systems to the max, so the outcome was not completely unexpected,”
SpaceX said in a statement about two and a half hours after the event. “There were no injuries, nor is this a serious setback.”
SpaceNews.com
https://spacenews.com/spacex-starship-suffers-testing-setback/
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