Watch SpaceX's Starship explode in astronomer's stunning telescope footage.

The second test flight of SpaceX's Starship was a photogenic one.

On Saturday (Nov. 18), the massive Starship rocket launched for the second time ever, lifting off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The Super Heavy booster of the 400-foot-tall (122 meters) rocket exploded shortly after stage separation, while the upper-stage Starship vehicle reached an altitude of 91 miles (148 kilometers), well above the 62-mile (100 km) boundary of space before it, too, experienced what SpaceX refers to as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."

Despite both parts of the vehicle exploding, SpaceX considers the test flight a success. "All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster started up successfully and, for the first time, completed a full-duration burn during ascent," SpaceX wrote in a recent mission update.

As spaceflight fans and photographers around Boca Chica pointed their cameras to the skies to document the spectacle, Scott Ferguson of Astronomy Live was watching from much farther away with a different kind of instrument: A telescope. Observing from the village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys, Ferguson captured an incredible view of Starship's upper stage as it exploded in suborbital space.

Source: www.space.com

Share: