OREANDA-NEWS. SpaceX's Starship prototype exploded on landing. Previously, the launch of the ship was postponed due to security checks.

As part of the test, the ship was supposed to reach an altitude of about 10 km, followed by engine shutdown, aerodynamic braking, re-starting the engines to return to the vertical position and soft landing on the launch pad. However, the test suborbital flight ended with an explosion in the sixth minute, according to the SpaceX broadcast on Twitter, published on Tuesday, March 30.

This is the fourth launch of the Starship to an altitude of more than ten kilometers. Earlier, on December 10, February 3 and March 4, the missiles exploded and collapsed during landing, but the tests were still considered successful, since the main goal was not to land, but to test the behavior in the air: turns, controllability during planning, and the performance of systems.

Earlier, Musk explained, that the engine of the ship SN10 had low thrust, probably due to a partial ingress of helium from the fuel tank. He noted, that due to the impact at a speed of 10 meters per second, the ship's supports and part of the “skirt” broke. At the same time, the entrepreneur noted, that several fixes for SN11 tests are already being prepared.