Why SpaceX won't consider this mission a failure

The last test flight in October saw SpaceX successfully land its Super Heavy booster back at the launch site. It was a history-making endeavor that few expected would happen.

A repeat of that spectacle didn’t happen today.

High hopes aside, SpaceX has been known to embrace fiery mishaps, explosions, and rockets crashing into watery ocean graves. That’s all fine — according to SpaceX — at least in the early stages of developing a new rocket.

SpaceX has said its approach to rocket development is geared toward speed. The company makes use of an engineering method called “rapid spiral development.” That essentially boils down to a desire to quickly build prototypes and willingly blow them up in the name of learning how to construct a better one — faster than if the company solely relied on ground tests and simulations.

After the first test flight’s explosion in April 2023, the company immediately sought to frame the mishap as a success, saying in a statement at the time, “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount.”