Fiery Blaze Over Indian Ocean As Elon Musk's Spacex Starship Suffers Rear-Flap Burn On Splashdown Watch

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Elon Musk led SpaceX's giant Starship rocket finally pulled off its most successful flight on Tuesday, marking its 10th test flight after a string of failed attempts and fiery explosions in earlier tests. But the re-entry left its mark, leaving the rear flaps of the spacecraft scorched during splashdown.

A video of the splashdown, posted by The Daily Mail, captured the moment a fiery yellow-orange blaze lit up the vast stretches of the dark blue Indian Ocean, SpaceX starship endured engine blasts, with the rear flaps burned while the spacecraft settled into the ocean.

SpaceX Starship launch

The 400-foot booster lifted off smoothly from SpaceX's Starbase site in Texas at 7:30 pm EST, following two nights of delays caused by weather and technical snags.

This time, however, the Starship managed to splash down in the Indian Ocean largely intact.

Also Read | SpaceX Starship's 10th Test Flight: Survives Reentry, Deploys Satellites

During its journey, the Starship soared a couple of hundred kilometers above Earth as it successfully detached its booster and distributed all eight dummy satellites into orbit for the first time since the ninth test's fiery descent, mentioned a report by the New York Post.

Tuesday's test also marked the second-ever successful Raptor engine relaunch.

What happened in previous launches?

The long-awaited launch of the Elon Musk led company's starship came after Sunday and Monday's attempts were both postponed.

Sunday's anticipated takeoff was scrapped even before the livestream kicked off when engineers detected a liquid oxygen leak.

Also Read | Elon Musk to move X, SpaceX from California to Texas over transgender law

On Monday, August 25, hopes were dashed again by unfavourable weather conditions Two minutes before Monday's scheduled launch, the team noted that they would be holding at T-40 since they were“red on the range for weather.” Every other parameter, though, fell in the“green range," mentioned NYP's report.

Also Read | SpaceX seeks to push past Starship's fiery troubles

By Tuesday, all checks fell into the“green range” and the rocket was cleared for launch on time.

The 10th launch also comes more than two months after the spacecraft exploded into an enormous fireball during a routine test.

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