A SpaceX rocket exploded soon after launch, but why did Elon Musk and his employees celebrate?

SpaceX said the event was “quite a show”, where a successful lift-off was followed by the craft exploding. Its Twitter handle describing the failure as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” led to amusement, but what exactly happened here and why is SpaceX still celebrating?

As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023

What was the flight test for?

On Thursday, the Elon Musk-founded commercial spacecraft company saw the successful launch-off of an unmanned test flight of its next-generation Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket. It has said that Starship will have significant capacity to carry heavy payloads.

This was the first launch with Starship’s two sections together and Musk said another one will follow a few months later. He also plans to use the craft to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlink internet service, before human flight tests.

Crucially, NASA has said that under a $3 billion contract, SpaceX will provide the human landing system that will transport astronauts for the 2025 Artemis III mission, which will see humans go to the South Pole of the moon. “After a series of tests, SpaceX will fly at least one uncrewed demo mission that lands Starship on the lunar surface. When Starship has met all of NASA’s requirements and high standards for crew safety, it will be ready for its first Artemis mission,” it said.

What should have happened ideally?

It was planned that the craft would drop its first-stage Super Heavy booster into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft was to then continue eastward to complete a near-circle of the Earth before splashing down near Hawaii, DW reported.

While Starship is designed to be fully reusable, nothing was to be saved from the test flight. It was only to gauge its current capabilities of launching, flying to the Earth’s orbit, re-entering the atmosphere and landing for re-use. SpaceX says that once successful, the craft will be eventually able to carry “up to 100 people” on long-duration flights in space.

But the explosion occurred less than four minutes into the flight. The mission’s goal was to achieve a 90-minute debut flight into space, which was unsuccessful due to the malfunction where the upper-stage Starship failed to separate from the lower-stage Super Heavy rocket.

But why was the reaction of Musk and others positive?

SpaceX executives, including Musk, pointed to how the major objective of getting the vehicle off the ground was achieved with a successful lift-off. Earlier too, he had said expectations on it fulfilling all its goals were not very high. “I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” he said last month. “I think it’s got, I don’t know, hopefully about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.”

The New York Times also noted that while big NASA programmes “are generally not afforded the same luxury of explode-as-you-learn”, because failure of those missions is highlighted among the public.

It quoted Daniel Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautic, as saying, “Government programs are not allowed to operate that way because of that, because of the way we have all the stakeholders being able to watch over and tell you no.”

NASA administrator Bill Nelson also said in a tweet congratulating SpaceX, “Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward.”

Congrats to @SpaceX on Starship’s first integrated flight test! Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward. Looking forward to all that SpaceX learns, to the next flight test—and beyond. https://t.co/ZYsh5VkxsA

— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) April 20, 2023

In a Reuters report, experts were quoted as saying that the dramatic loss of the rocket ship would help accelerate development of the vehicle. Planetary scientist Tanya Harrison, a fellow at the University of British Columbia’s Outer Space Institute, said “There are a lot of accidents that happen when you’re trying to design a new rocket. The fact that it launched at all made a lot of people really happy.”

She said the risks of a single flight test were small in comparison to the gains at stake. “This is the biggest rocket that humanity has tried to build,” she said, adding that it is designed to carry “orders of magnitude” more cargo and people to and from deep space than any existing spacecraft.

How does this fit among SpaceX’s larger aims?

It is being hoped that once tested successfully, Starship would carry back many tons of rock from Mars. It plans to transport dozens of astronauts and entire lab facilities to and from the moon and Mars. In comparison, NASA is also working on a mission to retrieve samples of Martian soil and minerals through its Mars Perseverance rover, but in smaller quantities.

Musk has highlighted Starship as crucial to SpaceX’s interplanetary exploration goals as well as its more near-term launch business, with commercial satellites, science telescopes and eventually paying astro-tourists expected to use the fully reusable rocket system for rides to space.

This has also been described as part of the ‘billionaries’ space race’, where Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is readying the New Glenn rocket for its orbital debut in the next year or so. NASA will use New Glenn to send a pair of spacecraft to Mars in 2024, the AP reported.