Super-heavy propellant designed for reuse lands in Gulf of Mexico for first time
SpaceX has completed one small step for mankind, but one giant step for man, Elon Musk. His dream of taking man back to the moon and colonizing Mars in one of his ships depended on the success of the fourth Starship experiment.
It was able to launch the most powerful rocket ever built 2:50pm (Spanish time) from Starbase in Boca ChicaAnd as Elon Musk joked on his X account, he returned to Earth after more than an hour of flight with “superficial injuries.”
His first experiments, in April Y November Last year, it ended in an explosion minutes after take off. In the third, last month MarchThe spacecraft managed to fly for more than an hour, but lost contact during the return phase at the end of the test.
In this case, Starship Tri was able to describe a trajectory similar to the test trajectory, and it produced a controlled splashdown. Indian Ocean Just before four in the afternoon (Spanish time). At an altitude of 60 kilometers, in full descent, there were tense moments when cameras live-streaming the test captured the ship starting to burn through one of its ailerons. It looked like it was starting to disintegrate, debris blocks the view of the cameras. However, he survived the incident.
Super Heavy Booster, the first stage of the vehicle, Designed to be reusableIt managed to separate from the starship six minutes after takeoff, and returned to Earth in a controlled manner, making a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Despite losing several shells and a damaged fin, the starship managed a soft landing at sea! Congrats on an epic feat!!”, Elon Musk congratulated his team via his x account.
“Starship’s fourth flight aims to quickly usher in the future of transportable, fully reusable transportation designed to carry. Crews and cargo to orbit Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond“, they point out from SpaceX.
Starship is designed to carry up to 150 fully reusable metric tons and 250 disposable metric tons. is tall 121 Metros 50 of them are related to the ship, and 9 are in diameter. Propelled by a super heavy rocket 33 Raptor engines Combustion in stages of methane and reusable oxygen.
NASA director Bill Nelson also took to his X account to congratulate Musk’s company with the message “@SpaceX for the successful Starship test flight this morning! We’re one step closer to returning humanity to the moon Look through #Artemis and then towards Mars.”
The US space agency is monitoring Musk’s mission to land humans on the moon after half a century. The Artemis 3 project was planned for 2025, but last January Postponed till 2026 Precisely because of the delay in the Starship tests.
The hearing took place this week with the announcement Yusaku MaezawaA Japanese businessman leading what would have been the first tourist trip to the moon aboard a Starship has called off the mission after it turned out to be “unfeasible” and “uncertain in the short term.”
The trip was supposed to take place in 2023, but it was postponed last November, and finally, Maezawa, the founder of Japan’s largest online fashion retailer Zozo (ZozoTown), made the decision to cancel it, considering the speed at which they were moving forward. SpaceX’s progress with the ship.
