At first, SpaceX‘s test of its prototype for the rocket it hopes to use in transporting people to Mars appeared to be going well. The spacecraft blasted off, traveled a few miles into the air, and hovered for a moment — before it came crashing back down on the landing pad and exploded into a huge fireball.
(SpaceX)
Despite the botched landing for the Elon Musk-run company, SpaceX engineer John Insprucker is focusing on the positive aspects of the botched launch.
“We demonstrated the ability to transition the engines to the landing propellant tanks, and the subsonic reentry looked very good and stable,” Insprucker says. “We’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit.”
