SpaceX’s Super Heavy Booster For New Starship 3 Exploded During Testing
Credit: Wikipedia
The first Super Heavy V3 accelerator was rolled out for testing yesterday, and today, during the first cryogenic tests, B18 exploded.
The day before, the company rolled out a massive rocket from its hangar, marking the start of testing, as announced on X’s social media account. The tests began on Thursday, November 20, at the Massey test site, a few kilometers from Starbase’s main launch site. On Friday, at 4:04 a.m. local time (1:04 p.m. Moscow time), an explosion occurred in the lower portion of the Super Heavy. Images taken after the incident show significant damage to the booster, located in its lower half, where a large liquid oxygen tank is located. There was no official comment from SpaceX or its CEO, Elon Musk.
The explosion was less powerful than the one in June, which caused extensive damage to the test site and completely destroyed the rocket. This time, the Raptor engines were not installed on the booster. But it was precisely at this stage that SpaceX was aiming to accelerate Starship development and achieve a stable launch schedule by 2026.
This failure will obviously have consequences for the test program of the newest Starship V3 rocket. It looks like the first test flight in January 2026 is out of the question, even though several Super Heavy V3s are in production.
