SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket explodes after launch

Los Angeles, April 20

SpaceX's giant Starship rocket exploded after its launch from the US state of Texas on Thursday. The rocket got off the launch pad in SpaceX's Starbase in South Texas but exploded minutes later. The spacecraft failed to reach orbit.

The launch was the first test flight of SpaceX's fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket, Xinhua news agency reported.

Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation, according to SpaceX.

"Today's test will help us improve Starship's reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary," the company tweeted.

Teams will continue to review data and work toward the next flight test, said SpaceX.

"Learnt a lot for next test launch in a few months," Elon Musk, founder, CEO and Chief Engineer of SpaceX, tweeted.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the launch of SpaceX's Starship rocket is "a good first step".

"It looks like they got through the first stage of this big monster rocket. That's a real accomplishment. We'll get a report on what happened to the second stage, but I'm very encouraged that they've gotten along this far," Nelson told CNN.

It was the second launch attempt of Starship after the first attempt was scrapped on Monday owing to technical issues.

--IANS