Engineers at the site claimed the test was 100% successful because every single part of the rocket is now on the ground, just in much smaller pieces than before. The company noted that the loud boom was simply the sound of progress occurring all at once.

“The vehicle didn’t fail; it just became a lot of smaller vehicles very suddenly,” said Jenny Spark, VP of Loud Noises. “We are now tracking 4,000 separate successful landings of the individual pieces.”

At publishing time, SpaceX announced the next test flight would save time by skipping the launch entirely and going straight to the fire.

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