Starship prototype SN9 is launched from the company’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX
SpaceX successfully landed a prototype of the Starship on Wednesday for the first time after a high-altitude flight test, which means an important step forward for the company Elon Musk in the development of the rocket.
But minutes after it landed gently on a concrete slab, the prototype rocket exploded. The cause or intent of the explosion was not immediately clear.
The company test flew Starship rocket Serial Number 10, or SN10. SpaceX aimed to launch the prototype as high as 10 kilometers, or about 32,800 feet high.
The Starship prototype is about 150 feet long, or about the size of a 15-story building, and is powered by three Raptor rocket engines. The rocket is constructed of stainless steel, representing the early versions of the rocket launched in 2019.
Musk’s company is developing Starship with the goal of sending cargo and humans on missions to the moon and Mars.
The SN10 flight was similar to that performed by SpaceX in December and February when it tested prototypes SN8 and SN9, respectively. Both previous rockets achieved several development objectives – including testing aerodynamics, shutting down the engines and turning to orient the land – but both prototypes exploded during the attack while they could land, without slowing down enough.
Like SN8 and SN9, the purpose of the SN10 flight was not necessarily to reach the maximum altitude, but rather to test several important parts of the Starship system. The Starship prototype is about 150 feet long, or about the size of a 15-story building, and is powered by three Raptor rocket engines. SpaceX will turn off all three engines and then turn them off in succession as it approaches the top of the aircraft’s intended altitude.
SN10 will aim to transfer propellant from the main tanks to the head tanks, and then turn around for the “belly flop” re-roll maneuver so that it can control the descent through the air with the rocket’s four valves. Then, in the last moments of the descent, SpaceX will return the rocket in a vertical direction and shoot down the Raptor engines to slow down a landing attempt.
Starship is one of two “Manhattan projects” that SpaceX is developing simultaneously, with the other being the Starlink satellite Internet program. Musk previously estimated that it would cost about $ 5 billion to fully develop Starship, although SpaceX has not yet announced how much it has spent on the program.
The company raised $ 850 million last month in its latest capital fundraiser at a valuation of $ 74 billion.
Musk remains “very confident” that Starship “will be safe enough for human transport by 2023” – an ambitious goal given the fact that the company began developing and testing the rocket in early 2019.
But Musk’s timeline is the most important, as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has paid for a Starship flight around the moon by 2023. Maezawa announced on Tuesday that he is inviting eight members of the public to take part in his precious Monday mission, which will be a six-day journey. to the moon and back.
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