Summary

  • SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket but loses contact after eight minutes of flight

  • The top part of the rocket successfully separated from the booster which then blew up. Contact was then lost with the upper-stage

  • Elon Musk's company still hailed it as a success and the rocket flew further than the first integrated flight test in April

  • This time the rocket reached space for the first time while in April the vehicle lost control and exploded four minutes after lift-off

  • Engineers at SpaceX - Musk's company - say they made "more than a thousand" changes to Starship's systems after the first launch

  • The mission plan was broadly the same as before: To send the top part of the two-stage vehicle - the Ship - nearly one full revolution of the Earth

Live Reporting

Edited by Marita Moloney

  1. Why was there such a big delay between the first and second test?

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    It’s taken more than half a year for a second try to launch Starship - a much longer gap than SpaceX anticipated.

    The delay has been largely due to new licensing requirements.

    After the explosive first test, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted an investigation and ordered significant changes before it would grant a licence to fly Starship again.

    A review by the US Fish And Wildlife Service was also carried out to assess the environmental impact on the delicate ecosystem surrounding the Texan launch site in Boca Chica.

    The agency concluded that there were no significant environmental changes, and Elon Musk said he’d made well over 1,000 improvements to make the rocket more reliable, and the company had carried out 63 “corrective actions” requested by the FAA. So the FAA has now given the go ahead for a second flight.

    However, there is still some local opposition to launches in the area. Environmental concerns remain and residents who lived in the area before SpaceX moved in are now subject to regular disruption. Road closures and travel restrictions are a common occurrence when tests are carried out.

  2. T-minus 15 minutes until lift-off

    Rocket about to launchSpaceX

    In the last hour, Elon Musk has taken to X, formerly Twitter, to give an update on Starship's progress.

    "Propellant load has started," he said a little earlier, while sharing a post from SpaceX's account that said "all systems and weather are go for the second integrated flight test" of the rocket.

    On SpaceX's website, a live webcast is showing footage of the rocket stationed at its launchpad with venting oxygen around it.

    T-minus 15 minutes until lift-off, it says.

  3. Countdown, lift off, explosion: How the first Starship launch unfolded

    Rebecca Morelle
    Science editor

    While the exploding rocket grabbed the most attention during the first test flight, there was an eruption on the ground, too.

    As Starship lifted off, its fiery exhaust blasted an enormous hole through the concrete launch pad, hurling debris in all directions up to 10km away.

    Scientists later calculated that the ground under the pad exploded with a force similar to a volcanic eruption.

    “It blew the concrete fragments at 90 meters per second, which is the same speed that a volcano would blow ejecta,” Phil Metzger from the University of Central Florida told the BBC.

    There’s some speculation that concrete even found its way into some of the rocket’s engines, which may have caused them to fail.

    “I think it was a bad risk, I think they should not have taken that risk to try to launch on a flat launch pad that was made out of concrete,” Metzger said.

    Now SpaceX have swapped to a steel launchpad, which is cooled with water to stop the metal from melting - which should keep the launchpad in one piece this time round.

  4. What’s happening today?

    Jonathan Amos
    Science correspondent

    American entrepreneur Elon Musk will have another go shortly at launching his mammoth new rocket, Starship.

    Lift-off from the coastal town of Boca Chica is scheduled to occur within a 20-minute window, starting at 07:00 local time (13:00 GMT).

    If Musk can get Starship working as designed, it will be revolutionary.

    A fully reusable rocket capable of putting more than a hundred tonnes in orbit in one go would radically lower the cost of space activity. It would also assist the entrepreneur in his efforts to realise the long-held dream of taking people and supplies to Mars to establish a human settlement.

    Rocket size comparison.

  5. Round two for Musk's Starship

    Sam Hancock
    Live reporter

    Hello and thanks for joining us as we await the second launch attempt of Elon Musk's Starship rocket.

    The vehicle's maiden flight in April dramatically ended after just four minutes, when it lost control and exploded - with debris from the 120m-tall (393ft) vehicle falling into the Gulf of Mexico.

    Engineers at Musk's SpaceX company have since made "more than a thousand" modifications - including installing a steel plate-structure at the pad they liken to an upside-down showerhead. This will produce immense fountains of water in a bid to dampen the heat and noise at lift-off, they say.

    We're here in London, alongside our science colleagues Rebecca Morelle and Jonathan Amos, but the take-off is happening almost 5,000 miles (8,000km) away in Texas.

    We'll be bringing you live update and analysis, and you can also watch the launch stream live at the top of this page.