A whole lotta big-badda-booms in Texas
High-altitude tests of SpaceX’s Starship prototype rocket produced tons of excitement during the first half of the year. Launching the 160-foot-tall (50-meter) rocket to a height of 6 miles (9.7 km) wasn’t the problem, nor was the controlled aerodynamic descent. It was the final stage of the test that proved to be the sticking point, as the rocket struggled to survive the landing.
SN9 crashed heavily at the Texas Boca Chica launch facility on February 2, SN10 blew up a few minutes after landing on March 3, and SN11 experienced rapid unscheduled disassembly on March 30. Unamused, the Federal Aviation Administration kept a close eye on SpaceX throughout the year. Finally, however, on May 5, the SN15 rocket performed the seemingly impossible, with Elon Musk tweeting: “Starship landing nominal!”
