SpaceX Starship SN10 launch - as it happened: Mars-bound prototype finally lands but explodes shortly after
Roughly eight minutes after landing, SN10 exploded while sitting at a lean on the landing pad
SpaceX has successfully performed a flight test of its Mars-bound Starship spacecraft on Wednesday after several delays.
Starship SN10 lifted off to 10km before landing successfully at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas, achieving what its predecessors could not.
Roughly eight minutes after landing, SN10 exploded while sitting at a lean on the landing pad.
Despite the explosion, the high-altitude flight test marked significant progress towards Elon Musk’s Mars ambitions.
SpaceX provided a live stream of the launch and landing, but did ended it before the explosion took place.
You can read all the updates as they happened here.
A good day for the beach
Boca Chica beach has been filling up all morning with space enthusiasts. What a view they’ll have.
T-minus ~30 minutes (fingers crossed).
Skirt venting
Skirt venting is underway, meaning we’re likely just over 15 minutes from lift-off.
Official countdown yet to begin
Launch preparations continue to progress, though there’s still no official word from SpaceX about the countdown starting.
For the Starship SN8 and SN9 tests, SpaceX began livestreaming the launch site around 10 minutes to go before lift-off.
Waiting on the tri-vent
The next milestone to tick off this countdown timeline is the tri-vent. We’re still waiting for it, and until we do we’ll be at least five minutes from the launch taking place.
'SpaceX has launch target’
SpaceX is targeting a lift-off time of 3.14pm (8.14pm GMT), according to CNBC space reporter Michael Sheetz.
That’s just over 15 minutes from now.
Starship into the clouds?
All being well, Starship will launch to an altitude of 10km today.
Wide shots of the launch pad show that there is a fair amount of cloud cover, which local weather reports claim is hovering at around 12,000 feet (3.6km).
This means we could see Starship disappear into clouds for the first time, before reappearing midway through its belly-flop descent.
Tri-vent underway
Venting of the three Raptor engines is underway, signalling the final stages of the countdown timeline.
T-minus ~5 minutes?
Still no official word from SpaceX, but current progress suggests we’re about 5 minutes out from the Starship SN10 flight test.
SpaceX is officially live!
SpaceX has launched its official live stream of the SN10 flight test.
T-minus 4 minutes.
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