今天凌晨，馬斯克的火箭又炸了。
這枚由他的私人公司SpaceX發明，用於太空載人遠航的“星際飛船”(Starship)原型火箭，在遭遇美國聯邦航空管理局數次“叫停”後，於當地時間2日獲批在美國的德克薩斯州博卡奇卡航天中心進行發射。
A prototype of SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded during a landing attempt minutes after a high-altitude experimental launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Tuesday, in a repeat of an accident that destroyed a previous test rocket.
The Starship SN9 that blew up on its final descent, like the SN8 before it, was a test model of the heavy-lift rocket being developed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private space company to carry humans and 100 tonnes of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.
這趟“短暫”的飛行試驗持續了6分26秒。透過現場直播可以看到，這枚自導的星艦火箭從墨西哥灣沿岸發射臺升空，並在第5分鐘衝上了10000米的高空，接連完成空中轉彎等特技動作，可惜在返回階段出現劇烈抖動，最終在觸地前數秒發生爆炸。
發射現場火光沖天，火箭成了一團火球。
The self-guided, 16-story-tall rocket initially soared into the clear, blue South Texas sky from its Gulf Coast launch pad on what appeared from SpaceX's livestream coverage to be a flawless liftoff.
Reaching its peak altitude of about 10 kilometers, the spacecraft then hovered momentarily in midair, shut off its engines and executed a planned "belly-flop" maneuver to descend nose-down under aerodynamic control back toward the Earth.
The trouble came when the Starship, after flipping its nose upward again to begin its landing sequence, tried to reactivate two of its three Raptor thrusters, but one failed to ignite. The rocket then fell rapidly to the ground in a roaring ball of flames, smoke and debris – 6 minutes and 26 seconds after launch. No injuries were reported.
據SpaceX工程師在試飛直播中介紹，火箭在大部分測試飛行中 “看起來非常穩定”，且達到了大約10公里的高度，“只是需要在著陸上多做一點努力”。
他表示，工程師將仔細檢查從測試中收集的資料以瞭解出現問題的原因，並會在不久後“帶著另一艘飛船迴歸。”
據悉，SpaceX計劃用星際飛船系列搭載宇航員前往月球和火星並執行貨運任務。
A SpaceX commentator for Tuesday's launch webcast said the rocket's flight to its test altitude "looked very good and stable, like we saw last December."
"We just have to work on that landing a little bit," the commentator said, adding, "This is a test flight, the second time we've flown Starship in this configuration."
He said SpaceX engineers would pore through data collected from the test to determine what went wrong, and "we'll be back with another Starship in the near future."
探索浩瀚宇宙深空，最終實現“在火星上退休”的終極夢想，是馬斯克製造宇宙飛船的無限動力，然而，這條前往火星之路並非坦途。
實際上，這次測試的星艦SN9號原型已經是SpaceX公司第二次試射的星艦原型機。首次試射的原型SN8於當地時間2020年12月9日實施發射。遺憾的是，兩者結局十分相似，都在著陸時發生了爆炸並解體。
而在SN8之前，先後共有6艘原型星艦在測試中“壯烈犧牲”。其中，既有地面點火事故，也有艦體結構強度測試事故等等。
數次失敗讓人對馬斯克的雄心壯志漸失信心，但他並不氣餒。
在SN8爆炸當天，馬斯克仍然發推慶祝SpaceX任務的“勝利”：
在此之前，馬斯克已經做好了“可能會失敗”的心理準備。
儘管如此，他仍然在按照自己規劃好的日程表一步步邁進：在SN8爆炸發生的兩個月後，他發推宣稱，將在今年晚些時候進行首次全民用軌道太空飛行。
The Starship SN8, the first prototype to fly in a high-altitude test launch, met a similar fate in December.
The complete Starship rocket, which will stand 120 meters tall when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is the company's next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – the center of Musk's ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine.
The rocket system is partially funded by NASA and could end up being offered to the U.S. military.
The first orbital flight of Starship is planned for the end of this year, and Musk has said he intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon and back with the Starship in 2023.