Why SpaceX's Starship Isn't A Complete Failure Despite Explosion

Wendy Whitman Cobb, Air University On April 20, 2023, a new SpaceX rocket called Starship exploded over the Gulf of Mexico three minutes into its first flight ever. SpaceX is calling the test launch a success, despite the fiery end result. As a space policy expert, I agree that the "rapid unscheduled disassembly" – the term SpaceX uses when its rockets explode – was a very successful failure. The full Starship stack comprises a Starship spacecraft (in black) on top of a rocket dubbed Super Heavy (in silver) and is nearly 400 feet (120 meters) tall. Hotel Marmot/Flickr, CC BY-SA The most powerful rocket ever built This launch was the first fully integrated test of SpaceX's new Starship. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever developed and is designed to be fully reusable. It is made of two different stages, or sections. The first stage, called Super Heavy, is a collection of 33 individual engines and provides more than twice the thrust of a Saturn V, the rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s.