SpaceX’s Latest Starship Rocket Prototype Explodes During Ground Test

A prototype of SpaceX’s rocket, Starship, exploded during its ground test on Friday night, ahead of the Falcon 9 launch later today.

Reportedly, fuel leak in the base part of rocket caused a huge fireball to erupt causing the rocket to explode. However, there are no reports of injuries as told by SpaceX, but not willing to open up more comments on this.

The Starship SN4 prototype exploded at about 1:49 p.m. CDT (2:49 p.m. EDT/1849 GMT) at SpaceX’s test facility near Boca Chica, Texas.

Starship, is a rocket standing 394 feet tall and is designed to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo to the moon and Mars. It is the space company’s planned next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle, the center of Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel affordable.

SpaceX was chosen by NASA as among the three companies being awarded a combined $1billion by NASA last month to develop rocket systems capable of ferrying cargo and humans to the moon.