What happened to SN11? Elon Musk explains the mid-air explosion, teases future iterations

X's Starship is first fully reusable craft that will be used to carry up to 100 tonnes of cargo into . With ambitious goal of setting foot on Mars one day, aero manufacturing company is developing Starship at an accelerated rate with protos after protos being tested each month to distinguish final one. On March 30, Starship SN11, fourth proto, was launched at 6:30 pm IST, carried to an altitude of 32,000 ft before exploding at Boca Chica.

What happened to SN11? Why did SN11 explode?

Many spectators were witnessing launch live but five minutes into video, stream froze and only resumed by time SN11 h crashed into launch p. Many couldn't clearly make out what went wrong. A separate live stream from NASAflight caught action in final moments during which a loud blast was recorded that mand to rip apart launch p.

X founder Elon Musk took to Twitter to dress what happened to SN11 and how it exploded. In a thre of tweets, he wrote - "Looks like engine 2 h issues in ascent and didn't reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn but in ory, it wasn't needed. Something significant happened shortly after landing burn starts. Should kw what it was once we can examine bits later today."

He followed it up with a humorous tweet, saying, "At least crater is in right place." Even though launch cant be classified as a success, it must be ted that rocket did t miss launchp despite poor wear conditions. This is because SN11 was rey with a rar-based launch system. Check out SN11 explosion video here -

While talking about SN11, Elon Musk also gave an insight into future projects. next batch of craft, named Starship SN15 or Serial Number 15, will fly from Boca Chica in a few days. In meantime, launchp will be cleared from debris and any dam to facilities that may have happened due to explosion will be repaired. Musk said that latest rocket will sport "hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software & engine" to avoid what happened with SN11.

Im Source: X TW