39+ Spacex Rocket Engine Test PNG. The explosion occurred during a test of a block 5 merlin engine, which will be used in a future generation of the company's falcon 9 rockets, a source told space.com. On sunday, one of spacex's rocket engines exploded during a test at the company's facility in mcgregor, texas — and now it's investigating what the mishap occurred during a qualification test of a merlin engine meant to be used during a falcon 9 launch in late 2018.

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Since the founding of spacex in 2002, the company has developed four families of rocket engines — merlin, kestrel, draco and superdraco — and is currently (since 2016) developing another rocket engine: On wednesday, spacex once again fueled starhopper for its first flight, but ended the test just seconds after the engines ignited. The explosion, first reported by the washington post, occurred on saturday but the company only confirmed the engine failure on wednesday.

Outfitted with 16 specialized test stands, the facility validates for flight every merlin engine that powers the falcon 9 and falcon heavy rockets, and.

Spacex launched an experimental rocket prototype on a hop test this week during which the giant the vehicle, dubbed sn5, does not look like an ordinary rocket, but rather a large, steel cylinder with a rocket engine last year spacex carried out three brief hop tests using an earlier prototype. Elon musk has been at spacex's test site for its rocket engines in central texas this weekend. Soon spacex will begin testing the rocket technology in real life. It was engulfed in a large cloud of smoke and flame that emanated from the top of the vehicle.