Nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another mammoth Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost contact minutes into the test flight as the spacecraft came tumbling down and broke apart.
This time, wreckage from the latest explosion was seen streaming from the skies over Florida. It was not immediately known whether the spacecraft's self-destruct system had kicked in to blow it up.
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off from Texas. SpaceX caught the first-stage booster back at the pad with giant mechanical arms, but engines on the spacecraft on top started shutting down as it streaked eastward for what was supposed to be a controlled entry over the Indian Ocean, half a world away. Contact was lost as the spacecraft went into an out-of-control spin.
Starship reached nearly 90 miles (150 kilometers) in altitude before trouble struck and before four mock satellites could be deployed. It was not immediately clear where it came down, but images of flaming debris were captured from Florida, including near Cape Canaveral, and posted online.
The space-skimming flight was supposed to last an hour.
“Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now,” SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot said from the launch site.
SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly" during the ascent engine firing. "Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses,” the company said in a statement posted online.
Starship didn't make it quite as high or as far as last time.
NASA has booked Starship to land its astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX’s Elon Musk is aiming for Mars with Starship, the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
Like last time, Starship had mock satellites to release once the craft reached space on this eighth test flight as a practice for future missions. They resembled SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, thousands of which currently orbit Earth, and were meant to fall back down following their brief taste of space.
Starship’s flaps, computers and fuel system were redesigned in preparation for the next big step: returning the spacecraft to the launch site just like the booster.
During the last demo, SpaceX captured the booster at the launch pad, but the spacecraft blew up several minutes later over the Atlantic. No injuries or major damage were reported.
According to an investigation that remains ongoing, leaking fuel triggered a series of fires that shut down the spacecraft’s engines. The on-board self-destruct system kicked in as planned.
SpaceX said it made several improvements to the spacecraft following the accident, and the Federal Aviation Administration recently cleared Starship once more for launch.
Starships soar out of the southernmost tip of Texas near the Mexican border. SpaceX is building another Starship complex at Cape Canaveral, home to the company’s smaller Falcon rockets that ferry astronauts and satellites to orbit.
SpaceX’s latest Starship test flight ends with another explosion
https://arab.news/j6cfr
SpaceX’s latest Starship test flight ends with another explosion
- Starship reached nearly 90 miles (150 kilometers) in altitude before trouble struck
Treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended VP is further eroding peace deal, UN experts say
- The experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country
- “Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said
UNITED NATIONS: The treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, UN experts warned in a new report.
As Riek Machar’s trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country and there is a threat of renewed major conflict.
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the UN Security Council last month that the crisis in South Sudan is escalating, “a breaking point” has become visible, and time is running “dangerously short” to bring the peace process back on track.
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict, but the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions, when forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
More than 400,000 people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. But implementation has been slow, and a long-delayed presidential election is now scheduled for December 2026.
The panel of UN experts stressed in a report this week that the political and security landscape in South Sudan looks very different today than it did in 2018 and that “the conflict that now threatens looks much different to those that came before.”
“Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said, “resulting in a patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups that are increasingly preoccupied by local struggles and often unenthused by the prospect of a national confrontation. ”
With limited supplies and low morale, South Sudan’s military has relied increasingly on aerial bombings that are “relatively indiscriminate” to disrupt the opposition, the experts said.
In a major escalation of tensions in March, a Nuer militia seized an army garrison. Kiir’s government responded, charging Machar and seven other opposition figures with treason, murder, terrorism and other crimes.
The UN experts said Kiir and his allies insist that, despite having dismissed Machar, implementation of the peace agreement is unaffected, pointing to a faction of the opposition led by Stephen Par Kuol that is still engaged in the peace process.
Those who refused to join Kuol and sided with Machar’s former deputy, Natheniel Oyet, “have largely been removed from their positions, forcing many to flee the country,” the experts said in the report.
The African Union, regional countries and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, have all called for Machar’s release and stressed their strong support for implementation of the 2018 agreement, the panel said.
According to the latest international assessment, 7.7 million people — 57 percent of the population — face “crisis” levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting, the panel said.
