Fiery Explosion Hits Elon Musk Mars Rocket Test
A large fireball and explosion occurred at the base of a test rocket booster at Elon Musk’s Texas launch facility Monday.
The event occurred during an afternoon testing operation, Musk confirmed in a tweet responding to a question.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries.
The explosion occurred at the base of the huge rocket booster Musk is planning to use to lift his starship space vehicles to orbit in his quest to take humans to Mars.
Several previous tests of vehicles in Musk's Starship program have ended in fireballs as well, as the mercurial entrepreneur emphasizes rapid development and testing as the best way to achieve his ambitious goals.
Musk later tweeted that damage was still being assessed.
The starship program is separate from SpaceX's use of its smaller Falcon rockets, which have successfully launched cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station for several years.
SpaceX also uses those rockets to launch its Starlink communication satellites, which will ultimately provide internet access almost anywhere around the world.
In addition to SpaceX, Musk is CEO of Tesla (TSLA) - Get Free Report, as well as Neuralink and the Boring Company.
He moved late last week to abandon his plans to purchase Twitter TWTR for $44 billion, complaining that the company had failed to provide accurate information on the number of spam and fake accounts on its service.
Twitter has moved to force Musk to complete the transaction, with the case now headed for an extensive legal showdown in Delaware Chancery court.
Musk moved most of his corporate operations to Texas in the past year, as Tesla opened a new manufacturing plant near Austin as part of its efforts to ramp up production of its popular electric vehicles.
