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Starship: why Elon Musk's rocket exploded after flying for only four minutes

2023-04-21T03:18:17.191Z


The world's largest rocket exploded after being launched from the SpaceX space base. The causes.


The world's largest rocket, Starship, developed by SpaceX for trips to the Moon and Mars,

exploded shortly after takeoff

, and although this first test flight was celebrated by the company's owner, Elon Musk, who anticipates a new launch "In a few months", the reasons for which it could only fly four minutes before the explosion became known.

The reason for the failed experience is that within the launch schedule,

the booster was scheduled to separate from the Starship capsule three minutes after launch

, but the separation did not occur and the rocket exploded four minutes after launch.


The black and silver megarocket blasted off at 8:33 a.m. local time (1:33 p.m. GMT) from Starbase, SpaceX's space base in Boca Chica, Texas, to cheers from employees.

But soon after it exploded.

"Congratulations to the SpaceX team on an exciting Starship test launch! We have learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months," Musk tweeted.

But even though the test only lasted 240 seconds

, both Musk and the SpaceX team are calling the launch a success.

It is that for them, the purpose of this test flight was to collect as much data as possible to improve the following prototypes.

A first pitch attempt in the final minutes of the countdown was canceled on Monday due to a technical problem.

"This is the first flight of a huge and very complex rocket," Musk had said on Sunday, calling the test "very risky."

The US space agency, NASA, chose the Starship spacecraft to transport astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. The mission, known as Artemis III, is scheduled for the end of 2025.

NASA chief Bill Nelson praised SpaceX.

"Every great achievement in history has required

some level of calculated risk

," he tweeted, saying he was "looking forward" to the next test.

SpaceX's starship lifts off from the launch pad during a flight test from the Boca Chica, Texas starbase on April 20, 2023. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP)

At 120 meters, Starship was taller than NASA's new SLS megarocket (98 m), which launched for the first time in November, and the legendary Saturn V, the Apollo lunar program rocket (111 m).

Starship consisted of a powerful first stage, called Super Heavy and equipped with 33 engines, and a second stage, the Starship spacecraft, which by extension gave the entire rocket its name.

SpaceX had successfully conducted a test fire of all 33 engines in February, but Super Heavy and Starship had never flown together.

The test flight was intended to assess its performance in full configuration.

On Thursday, the flight plan was as follows: About three minutes after liftoff, the Super Heavy booster would separate from Starship and plunge into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

But this separation did not take place and the rocket exploded.

If the separation had been successful, the Starship, which had six of its own engines, should have continued its climb to an altitude of more than 150 kilometers, before falling into the Pacific after completing almost one full circle of Earth.

But getting through all these steps on the first test flight would have been quite a feat.

The spacecraft capsule was scheduled to separate from the first stage of the booster rocket within three minutes of flight, but the separation did not occur and the rocket exploded.

(Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP)

Musk had tempered expectations, saying it was unlikely to reach orbit on the first try.

He indicated that he would at least hope the launch pad was not destroyed by the explosion of the Super Heavy's engines upon igniting, since rebuilding it could take "months."

Starship must be able to transport and launch up to 150 tons of cargo into orbit.

By comparison, the Falcon 9 rocket, also from SpaceX, can only carry just over 22 tons to low-Earth orbit.

But the real innovation of Starship is that it must be fully reusable, something Musk believes can be achieved in "two to three years."

In this first test, there was not going to be an attempt to recover either of the two stages of the rocket, but eventually, yes.

"We've designed Starship to be as close to airline operations as possible," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, explained in February.

The idea of ​​a reusable launcher, Musk's big strategy, is to lower prices.

Each Starship flight could ultimately cost only "a few million" dollars, he noted.

This is an imperative for the billionaire, who believes that humans will need hundreds of Starship rockets to have a chance of becoming a multi-planetary species.

Source: AFP and Reuters

look too

Video: This is how the Starship, SpaceX's most powerful rocket, exploded

STARSHIP: SpaceX's superrocket made its first takeoff but exploded after a few minutes

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-04-21

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