[ad_1]
Starship’s upper-stage spacecraft was supposed to complete a partial orbit around Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean close to Hawaii (Image Credit: SpaceX/Twitter)
SpaceX’s Starship, which is touted to be the world’s most powerful spacecraft—capable of taking astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and beyond—has successfully launched during its second launch attempt but later exploded before making it to orbit.
SpaceX’s Starship, which is touted to be the world’s most powerful spacecraft—capable of taking astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and beyond—has successfully launched during its second launch attempt but later exploded before making it to orbit.
Earlier, on Monday this week, the first launch of Starship faced a last-minute cancellation due to a pressurization system error that emerged with the Super Heavy booster, which is the first stage, or booster, of the Starship launch system—having 33 Raptor engines on board. However, today, Starship successfully lifted off from the Texas-based Starbase at approximately 8:28AM CT (6:58PM IST) after the Super Heavy booster successfully ignited its Raptor engines and took off.
“Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months,” Elon Musk tweeted.
“Liftoff of Starship!” SpaceX said. It added, “Starship has cleared the pad and beach! Vehicle is on a nominal flight path.”
The company notes that Starship experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” and that the teams involved will continue to review the gathered data—to work on future flights.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary,” the company said.
Starship’s upper-stage spacecraft was supposed to complete a partial orbit around Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean close to Hawaii.
The Starship spacecraft, with a Super Heavy booster featuring 33 Raptor engines, is SpaceX’s biggest rocket yet, larger than NASA’s Space Launch System. The two-part system has a height of 120m, diameter of 9m, and a 100-150 tonne payload capacity. Its reusable methane-oxygen engines have twice the thrust of Falcon 9 Merlin engines, and it can accommodate over 100 people for long interplanetary flights. Starship will assist NASA’s Artemis mission and help establish bases on the Moon and Mars, working in conjunction with the SLS.
Read all the Latest Tech News here
[ad_2]
Source link
