SpaceX Starship Engine Test Is Successful In Every Way, Except For All Of The Exploding - Jalopnik

2026 is a big year for SpaceX's Starship, the biggest and most ambitious rocket ever built. The third version of the still-in-development launch vehicle will debut soon (maybe), which will be the version that will go to Mars (maybe) and take astronauts to the surface of the Moon (maybe). And that third version will, appropriately, be rocking the lighter, more powerful third version of the company's proprietary Raptor engine. 39 of them, in fact. So, all that SpaceX has to do is test the Raptor 3 for safety! You'll be pleased to learn that the testing is going just swell, except for the fact that it blew itself to smithereens.

It's a pretty spectacular detonation, caught on camera by NASASpaceflight, despite the fact that this was neither NASA nor in space nor in flight. This is at SpaceX's company town of Starbase, Texas. As you can see, there's a large plume of smoke at first, probably just the normal exhaust from the thruster. Then a loud boom, and suddenly, a pillar of flame erupts from the testing pad. It looks devastating, but fortunately, testing sites like this are designed for this eventuality. No one would have been anywhere near the pad, and the pad is made to withstand explosions.

As reported by Gizmodo, it's not clear what exactly went wrong. That said, part of testing is pushing components way past their limits, so it's entirely possible that the team predicted a fiery end. Even if they didn't, they'll at least understand what the Raptor 3 can and can't do a little better. However, if this part of the test was expected to be a more ordinary scenario, then SpaceX may have bigger problems.