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Elon Musk hails 'success' as SpaceX test flight ends in fiery explosion

$135 million Starship prototype vanishes in an orange cloud of blazing rocket fuel

The National

December 10, 2020

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A SpaceX Starship prototype exploded while trying to land on Wednesday.

The incident occurred after an otherwise successful test launch from the company's rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

The Starship rocket destroyed in the accident was a 16-storey-tall prototype of the heavy-lift launch vehicle being developed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private space company.

It is designed to carry human beings and 100 tonnes of cargo on future missions to the Moon and Mars.

The self-guided rocket blew up as it touched down on a landing pad after a controlled descent. The test flight had been intended to reach an altitude of 12,496 metres, propelled by three of SpaceX's newly developed Raptor engines for the first time. But the company left unclear whether the rocket had flown that high.

SpaceX's first super heavy-lift Starship SN8 rocket during a return-landing attempt after it launched from their facility on a test flight in Boca Chica, Texas U.S. December 9, 2020. REUTERS/Gene Blevins
SpaceX's first super heavy-lift Starship SN8 rocket during a return-landing attempt after it launched from their facility on a test flight in Boca Chica, Texas U.S. December 9, 2020. REUTERS/Gene Blevins

Mr Musk said in a tweet immediately after the landing mishap that the rocket's "fuel header tank pressure was low" during descent, "causing touchdown velocity to be high".

He said that SpaceX had obtained all the data needed from the test and hailed the rocket’s ascent phase a success.

SpaceX made its first attempt to launch Starship on Tuesday, but a problem with its Raptor engines forced an automatic abort just one second before lift-off.

The complete Starship rocket, which will stand 120 metres tall when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is the company’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – the centre of Mr Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine.

Nasa awarded SpaceX $135 million to help develop Starship, alongside competing vehicles from rival ventures Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, and Leidos-owned Dynetcis.

Test flight of SpaceX's first super heavy-lift Starship SN8 rocket after it launched. REUTERS
Test flight of SpaceX's first super heavy-lift Starship SN8 rocket after it launched. REUTERS

The three companies are vying for future contracts to build the moon landers under Nasa’s Artemis programme, which calls for a series of human lunar explorations within the next decade.

Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has been buying up residential properties in the Boca Chica village just north of the US-Mexico border in south-east Texas to make room for his expanding Starship facilities, which Mr Musk envisions as a future "gateway to Mars".

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  • Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave. 
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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Year of birth: 1988

Place of birth: Baghdad

Education: PhD student and co-researcher at Greifswald University, Germany

Hobbies: Ping Pong, swimming, reading

 

 

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