SpaceX's uncrewed Starship explodes on launch attempt

SpaceX hasn't received a warm welcome from everybody in the Brownsville area.

Those with homes close to the launch site saw their once remote beach community overrun by SpaceX employees and rocket construction. The company has now purchased the vast majority of the homes in the area once called Boca Chica Village.

When the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, was carrying out an environmental assessment, a public comment period aired the voices of many local residents strongly opposed to the idea, as well as some fervent supporters who weren’t necessarily from the area.

Overall, however, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño told CNN that he views SpaceX as a massive boon to the area.

CEO Elon Musk pledged to donate around $10 million to an effort to revitalize downtown Brownsville. Treviño said he couldn't confirm if the full amount had been donated, but he said Musk money has already gone to some key projects, including replacing street lamps. Musk also invested about $20 million in local schools.

SpaceX has also drawn tourism to the area, Treviño said, as evidenced by the massive turnout of spectators Thursday.

From smoking weed on a podcast to entering a battle with federal regulators over a weed joke, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long had a penchant for embracing the numerical reference to marijuana.

Last week, he even strongly hinted that SpaceX's first launch attempt on Monday might be delayed so that the company could target a 4/20 liftoff.

Rumors also swirled on Tuesday about whether SpaceX could hit that target. At one point, the Federal Aviation Administration took down an air traffic warning for Thursday, sparking speculation that the favored launch date was off the table. It was ultimately reinstated.

Musk fueled that fire with his own tweet:

SpaceX has a livestream of the Starship launch here.

Folks on the ground near SpaceX's facilities in South Texas can certainly catch an in-person glimpse. Locals are known to line the surrounding beaches in South Padre Island to watch tests, and this launch is sure to draw spectators.

SpaceX has repeatedly warned those in the area, however, to stay away from the "Keepout Zone" — the areas directly surrounding the launch site that have been deemed too close to the rocket to be safe during launch.

The "Keepout Zone" includes the coastline south of South Padre Island and stretches a few miles inland.

SpaceX also issued this warning:

For those around the world hoping to catch views of the rocket in flight — that may not be possible.

Dr. Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at the Department of Astrodynamics and Space Missions of Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, mapped out the rocket's trajectory and predicts it will fly through too much daylight or the shadow in Earth's atmosphere to be visible from the ground.

But, folks in Hawaii should be able to see the Starship spacecraft as it plunges back into Earth's atmosphere after the flight. The reentry process is known to cause spacecraft to light up as the intense speeds and pressure on the vehicle create a fiery blaze.

SpaceX confirmed around 6:30 a.m. CT this morning that it gave the green light for "prop load" or propellant load. The Starship vehicle will be filled up with more than 10 million pounds of fuel and oxidizer.

Fueling got underway about a half hour later.

SpaceX has a few things to consider before Starship is fully in the clear to launch.

First — there's always the weather.

During most launches, the US military helps keep track of the weather. That's true at NASA launch sites on the East Coast and West Coast.

But SpaceX is launching from its own private spaceport on Texas' southern tip. The company is still receiving some government weather support, but it's up to the company to make the call on whether to launch. And even if the weather is balmy at the launch site, high-altitude winds or rough weather along the rocket's flight path could still force a delay

A number of other factors could also derail the launch.

Engineers on the ground will be monitoring data coming in from the rocket all morning. Any blips or identified issues could trigger a scrub.

That's what happened on Monday when launch controllers spotted a pressurization issue during fueling that was caused by a frozen valve.

And even if the countdown approaches the final moments before liftoff, onboard computers could still detect an issue and bring everything to a halt.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also addressed scrubs during a Twitter Spaces event on Sunday: "There's a good chance that it gets postponed since we're going to be pretty careful about this launch."

SpaceX cleared the final regulatory hurdle standing before the inaugural launch of its Starship rocket last week.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, announced Friday that it granted the company’s request for an uncrewed flight test of the rocket out of the SpaceX facilities in South Texas. The vehicle, which has already undergone preflight ground testing, is poised to take off from the company's facilities outside Brownsville, Texas — which lies on the state's southernmost tip.

Some background: SpaceX had been waiting more than a year to get FAA approval for this launch.

The company and federal regulators – tasked with certifying SpaceX launches won’t pose risks to people or property in the area surrounding the launch site – have faced significant pushback from the local community, including from environmental groups.

In June, the FAA granted SpaceX one key approval for launching Starship, though it laid out a list of “mitigating actions” the company would need to take before the first launch.

During a call with reporters this week, an FAA official, who declined to be named for publication, said the agency has been overseeing SpaceX’s compliance with the mitigating actions, some of which are still in the works, even as the launch license is issued.

The FAA official also said government personnel will be on the ground to ensure SpaceX complies with its license during the test launch.

Starship is the most powerful rocket ever constructed and something SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked about for a decade. There have been elaborate presentations about its design and Starship was described as the vehicle that underpins SpaceX’s founding purpose: sending humans to Mars for the first time.

NASA has already awarded SpaceX contracts and options — worth more than $3 billion — to use Starship to ferry government astronauts to the surface of the moon under the space agency’s Artemis program.

The inaugural flight test will not complete a full orbit around Earth. If successful, however, it will reach orbital speeds and travel about 150 miles above Earth’s surface, well into altitudes deemed to be outer space.

Starship consists of two parts: The Super Heavy booster, a gargantuan rocket that houses 33 engines, and the Starship spacecraft, which sits atop the booster during launch and is designed to break away after the booster expends its fuel to finish the mission.

On this flight, the rocket booster will be discarded into the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff if all goes to plan. In future flights, however, SpaceX plans to recover the vehicle by guiding it to an upright landing back at the launch site.

If successful, the Starship spacecraft will complete a partial lap of the planet, ending its flight with a splashdown off Hawaii.