A small methane leak caused an explosion during the test of the next prototype of the American manned spacecraft Starship. This was announced on April 5 by the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, on his Twitter account.
"There was a (relatively) small CH4 (methane) leak that ignited the second engine and fried part of the avionics. We will fix this until Sunday, " Musk wrote.
On March 30, SpaceX's Starship prototype exploded during a landing attempt after a test flight.
The ship rose to an altitude of 10 km, but then its engines turned off and there was an aerodynamic braking. After restarting the engines a minute before landing, the video signal disappeared from the ship. As it turned out, an explosion followed.
Starship SN11 was launched from the company's test site in southeast Texas. This was the fourth unsuccessful test of Starship.
So, on March 3, during a test flight, the prototype of the Starship SN10 also rose to an altitude of about 10 km, turned around, landed, but a few minutes later exploded.
The Starship is designed for flights to the Moon and Mars, designed for 100 people and the launch of more than 100 tons of cargo into low-Earth orbit. At the moment, SpaceX is preparing to test its new prototype-the SN15.
