The new Starship prototype of Space X appeared to burst while undergoing a pressure test late last week. It ruptured under the brightness of flood lights and a coat of mist at the south Texas facility of the company. Known as the Starship SN1 prototype, this model was moved to a launchpad by SpaceX, near its Boca Chica, Texas assembly site in the same week of the test. SN1 blew apart while a liquid nitrogen pressure test was going on. This was shown on a video captured by SPadre.com.
BocaChicaGal, a NASASpaceflight.com member posted a separate video clearly showing the midsection buckle of the Starship SN1 during the test, "then shoot upward before crashing back to the ground."
Relatively, Starship SN1 is SpaceX's test article for its planned Starship and Super Heavy megarocket, a gigantic, reusable vertical launch-vertical landing system devised to "fly deep-space missions to the moon, Mars and beyond."
The Starship SN1
The Starship SN1 looks like a stainless, gleaming silo. It is the very first, of a series of test articles which SpaceX is planning to develop and run for trial over time to fine-tune the systems required to create a completely functional Starship.
Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO hinted that a lot of these models will be needed for the perfection of the Starship vehicle.
Earlier on, in December, the firm's official said, the company is currently building the Starship SN1's flight design. However, each SN is set to have at least some small improvements, "at least through SN20 or so of Starship V1.0."
SN1's apparent bursting was not the first time for SpaceX. In September last year, Musk unveiled the first-ever full-size Starship model known as the Starship Mk1. This vehicle blew its top too while going through the cryogenic testing.
It was in 2016 when Musk first announced the company's plan for the launch system of SpaceX. The company enhanced the design over the following years into "a towering 387-foot-tall spacecraft and booster," with the ability to carry 100 people into deep space.
SpaceX's Japanese Billionaire Customer
Aside from its Starship launch system, SpaceX also announced signing with a Japanese billionaire customer, Yusaku Maezawa. The deal is, for Maezawa to go on a trip riding a Starship vehicle around the moon in 2023.
In relation to this, the customer even announced via Twitter his "girlfriend contest" from which, the winner, would be the first woman to travel to the moon with him.
He later retracted his announcement and said there would no longer be a contest.
In 2018, the Japanese billionaire announced that he, together with eight artists would be the first riders of SpaceX's Starship which would fly them around the moon sans the landing.
In relation to this, NASA has recently chosen SpaceX to offer launch services for the Psyche mission of the agency that would travel an extraordinary metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche, orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Mars.
The targeted launch for this particular Psyche mission is on July 2022.
