Elon Musk presented the concept of the interplanetary spacecraft Starship, formerly called BFR, in 2016.
Starship - the name of the second stage and at the same timespaceship, and the first step is called Super Heavy. SpaceX previously carried out the first successful tests of the Raptor engine at Super Heavy, and then tested the engine for Starship.
The new stage of testing, which took place at the company's test site near the village of Boca Chica in Texas, involved the third prototype of the ship, called SN3. It was intended for flights to Mars.
First, the engineers filled the casing with liquidnitrogen - this was done in order to check how the hull of a ship behaves at a low temperature in space. However, the ship's hull could not stand it - upon contact with liquid nitrogen it was torn into several parts.
“The reason for the failure could have been an error in the test configuration.”
Elon Musk, head of SpaceX
This failure was the third in a row: tests of the two previous Starship prototypes also ended in explosions.
Earlier, SpaceX opened the third complex forStarship ship engine tests. It is located in McGregor, Texas, and will accelerate engine testing for the spacecraft, which will be due to go to the moon in 2021.