Elon Musk speaks out after rocket explodes in biggest launch in history
Elon Musk has spoken out after his Starship rocket exploded during the largest ever launch in history.
The SpaceX CEO - who does still have a blue tick on Twitter, if you were wondering - has been sharing updates on the situation at SpaceX Starbase in Texas today (20 April), as his 120-metre Starship rocket system prepared to take off.
After a pressurisation issue caused a planned launch earlier this week to be cancelled, Musk got people excited for blast-off this morning as he tweeted: "All systems currently green for launch."
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The CEO went on to count the minutes until the largest and most powerful rocket ever built left its base, having received approval last week from the Federal Aviation Administration, but things spiralled out of control soon after the rocket left the ground.
'Spiralled' being the operative word.
Just minutes after lift-off, the rocket started to spin before bursting into a spectacular explosion.
SpaceX addressed the incident in a statement on Twitter, insisting the mishap only made the situation more exciting: "As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation."
The company went on to say its teams would now focus on reviewing data and working towards its next test flight, adding: "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary.
"Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first integrated flight test of Starship!"
Musk has also responded to the explosion, and like his business, kept a light-hearted tone when discussing the explosion of his rocket.
Finding the silver lining, Musk congratulated the company for the launch, writing: "Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months."
Though the goal of the launch obviously was not an explosion, SpaceX has previously made clear that the chances of success with the first attempt at launch were slim.
Even SpaceX employees didn't really seem that concerned about the matter as they cheered when the rocket exploded.
Once the issue of 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' is taken care of, SpaceX is hopeful the rocket will be the first step on a human journey to Mars.
It's designed to eventually carry up to 100 astronauts, and is as long as three passenger jets.
Emily Brown