SpaceX Says Numerous Fires Broke Out on Board Its Starship Spacecraft During Most Recent Launch

SpaceX has revealed that its latest Starship prototype self-destructed during its flight last month following an oxygen leak, flashes, and "sustained fires" in its aft section. In an update posted to its website today, the Elon Musk-led space company admitted that "not every test objective was completed," but vowed that "lessons learned will roll directly into future vehicles to make them more capable as Starship advances toward full and rapid reuse." On January 16, SpaceX's towering Starship prototype broke into countless pieces as it reentered the atmosphere over the Caribbean, showering the British islands of Turks and Caicos with debris. The "rapid unscheduled disassembly," a tongue-in-cheek term denoting a rocket explosion, occurred after stage separation, when the team noticed a "flash" near Starship's six Raptor engines, with sensors detecting a "pressure rise indicative of a leak." The fires "eventually caused all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut dow ... Read full article.