By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A towering first-stage booster for an upgraded version of SpaceX's Starship rocket suffered a predawn testing failure in Texas on Friday, potentially complicating the company's push to prove the rocket's moon-landing abilities for NASA, according to observers who captured it on video.
Elon Musk's SpaceX had rolled the stainless steel booster out to a testing pad on Thursday at the company's Starbase rocket facilities, saying it intended to test its redesigned
propellant systems and structural strength.
During a test on the pad around 4 a.m. CT Friday, a zoomed-in live video feed from SpaceX-watching group LabPadre showed the booster suddenly buckle and release a cloud of gas from its sides, indicating a possible explosion under pressure had blown open its exterior.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the mishap.
The company has faced pressure from NASA to advance its whirlwind Starship development program to a new phase of tests involving features related to the rocket's future moon landings, a multibillion-dollar pair of missions for the U.S. space agency that would put the first humans on the lunar surface since 1972.
The mission has made Starship a central component of the U.S. moon program, which is increasingly pressed to achieve a landing before China does around 2030. NASA's acting and prospective leadership camps have tussled over how best to return humans to the moon while China's space program advances.
The booster that suffered the mishap on Friday was the first of Starship V3, an iteration of the rocket that SpaceX has said packs an array of new designs and features related to the moon program.
SpaceX is known for speedy production of multiple booster iterations as part of its capital-intensive test-to-failure ethos of rocket development. But it was unclear whether it has another V3 booster it could resume tests with, or by how many months the mishap could set back the Starship program.
NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Starbase, the sprawling SpaceX Starship facilities in south Texas, has had multiple testing explosions in the past. A Starship booster exploded in a giant fireball on its testing pad in June, sending debris across the U.S.-Mexico border two miles away and sparking political tension with the country's president.
(Reporting by Joey RouletteEditing by Bill Berkrot)
