SpaceX Moon rocket fails again, while China’s space capsule tests succeed

: World Tribune; 27 June 2025; Hits: 17

FPI / June 27, 2025

By Richard Fisher

In another setback to the United States Moon and Mars programs, on June 18 at the SpaceX “Starbase” in Boca China, Texas, the 36th SpaceX Starship for what would have been its 10th launch attempt, experienced a launch-pad Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) or massive explosion just after 11 p.m. local time.

While SpaceX has not yet commented on the explosion, it was conducting a routine static-fire test of the Starship engines, while the spacecraft was tied to its launch platform.

Video coverage of the static test by the private NASASpaceflight forum showed that the explosion began in the Starship second stage, which also failed/exploded during the 9th launch attempt on May 27, the 8th attempt on March 26, and the 7th attempt on Jan. 16.

So to date, Starship has yet to complete a full Earth Orbit, achieve the full land-recovery of both of its stages, or a refueling in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) even though it will be the basis for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Human Landing System (HLS) that will take U.S. astronauts back to the Moon for the Artemis-III mission scheduled (so far) for mid-2027.

However, during a Nov. 7, 2024 conference in Mexico sponsored by the Mexican Space Agency, Kathryn Lueders, SpaceX General Manager of the Starship program and former NASA Associate Administrator, noted that by 2025 the Starship could make its 25th flight.

While it is not clear that it can meet this schedule, SpaceX’s laudable goal is to make spaceflight via its Starship almost as routine as airline travel, with high reusability and landing-to-relaunch turnaround in hours.

While this goal is worth continued U.S. government investment in Starship, especially when it could be possible of taking 100 tons of cargo or people to the Moon, there is mounting pressure from China for SpaceX to start succeeding.

Mengzhou LES Test

While China is not yet close to building its own “Starship,” though in the 2030s there could be multiple Chinese “Starships,” its deliberate Moon program based on smaller and more manageable technology is meeting with success.

In what will become a regular roll of tests that must precede China’s first manned mission to the Moon before 2030, on June 17 the China Manned Space Office (CMSO) announced that it had successfully completed the first zero-altitude tests of the rocket Launch Escape System (LES) for the new Mengzhou manned space capsule.

Full Text . . . . Current Edition . . . . Subscription Information

Free Press International

SpaceX Moon rocket fails again, while China’s space capsule tests succeed, WorldTribune.com