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 starship finally lands without exploding, only to explode moments later

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.

[3 March 2021 22:02 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Reattempt on track

We’re still on track here for a high-altitude flight test of Starship SN10.

All being well, lift-off will take place in just under 30 minutes.

SpaceX’s official stream will be live in about 15-20 minutes - we’ll have it right here as soon as it’s live.

[3 March 2021 22:16 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Still no venting

There is a distinct lack of venting happening on the launchpad right now, suggesting SpaceX’s timeframe may need to be revised.

There is less than two hours left in this launch window.

(CC)

[3 March 2021 22:26 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Condenser spewing

The condenser is beginning to spew some vapour, which typically indicates that we’re anywhere from 30-50 minutes away from lift-off.

[3 March 2021 22:50 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Preparations continue

There is a lot of venting happening on the launchpad right now as propel loading continues.

This is a great indicator that SpaceX is nearing the final stages of preparation ahead of a launch attempt.

[3 March 2021 23:01 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

SpaceX targeting 5.13pm

SpaceX is leaving it late for this test. Joey Roulette, a space correspondent at The Verge, reports that the launch attempt is scheduled for 5.13pm local time (11.13pm GMT).

If this attempt fails, there will be no time left to reset and reenter the launch countdown sequence.

[3 March 2021 23:04 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Tri-vents underway

The final process of this launch sequence has occurred, with the Raptor engines venting.

That means there’s just 10 minutes to go until launch.

[3 March 2021 23:09 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

Still waiting on official SpaceX stream

There is still no official live stream of the Starship SN10 launchpad from SpaceX, but everything continues to move in the right direction.

It’s roughly T-minus 5 minutes until lift-off.

[3 March 2021 23:10 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

SpaceX stream is here!

And right on time, here’s the official SpaceX stream:

[3 March 2021 23:12 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

T-Minus 3 minutes

We’re almost there.

(SpaceX)

[3 March 2021 23:13 · Anthony Cuthbertson]

T-minus 1 minute

Just 60 seconds left on the countdown.