The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand “due to a structural failure.

Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site.

  • CosmoNovaEnglish
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    4 months ago
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    They suffer far more than anyone else from it. I mean just last week another rocket malfunctioned, lost a fuel tank that crashed close to a nearby village, enveloping homes in toxic gas. And spacecraft catastrophes are only the tiny tip if the tip of the iceberg.

    • Morphit English
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      4 months ago
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      I don’t think that was a malfunction
      That was ‘working as intended’.