A space company SpaceX’s gigantic Starship successfully took off from the launch pad into space at around 15:25 Finnish time.
After more than an hour of flight, the Starship landed, but according to the latest information, the ship was destroyed when it landed in the Indian Ocean. Or it could burn or decompose already in the air.
Due to the atmosphere and plasma, radio communication was lost when the ship heated up due to atmospheric friction. Of course, the Starship was protected from the heat by hundreds of heat shields.
The connection was lost for good before the ship hit the sea. The demanding flight was still partly a success, i.e. it carried out tests. The received data is being studied. The US Civil Aviation Administration, on the other hand, announced that it is overseeing SpaceX’s investigation into the causes of the accident.
The launch was the Starship’s third test within a year.
The ship the first stage, i.e. the lowest part, came off after about three minutes. The first stage of the rocket fell into the Gulf of Mexico. According to initial information, it hit the sea at a speed of one thousand kilometers per hour.
The upper part of the ship, i.e. the second stage, quickly rose to a height of 150 kilometers. So it quickly reached the same height as the previous test flight, which ended in an explosion.
Then the ship already rose to a height of more than 200 kilometers, so you can say it was in space. One hundred kilometers has been considered the limit of space. Of the tests planned for the flight, the opening and closing of the cargo spaces was successful.
The flight included, among other things, restarting the upper stage Raptor engines in space. However, that is not what Starship tried to do, according to the latest information.
The transfer of propellant inside the Starship from one tank to another had to be tested as well, says SpaceNews.
The Starship also tried to communicate with the Starlink satellites and received data from the landing.
When the Starship’s second stage re-entered the atmosphere after more than an hour on Thursday, it appeared to be ablaze from atmospheric friction.
Launcher is the largest in the world. It could someday take cargo and people to the Moon and Mars.
It consists of the Super Heavy, which is the lower part of the Starship with additional tanks.
The second stage is also called Starship, to distinguish it from the others Starship 28. Together, these two stages raise the rocket to a height of 122 meters on the launch pad.
SpaceX test tanked Starship in early March. The refueling was done near the launch site, or Starbase, in Boca Chica, South Texas.
Millions of liters of liquid methane and liquid oxygen were refueled in the lower and upper parts of the launch vehicle. Both have rocket engines.
Both parts, i.e. Starship and Super Heavy, are designed for reuse.
Together they are the world’s most powerful rocket. They can take a payload of up to 150 tons into orbit around the Earth.
A day before departure, people enjoy the sun near the departure point in Brownsville, Texas.
SpaceX:n should slowly get the Starship into orbit around Earth, where it would be refueled for a test run. With just added fuel, the Starship can go all the way to the Moon and beyond.
US Space Administration NASA selected Starship in April 2021 as a ship that will take two astronauts on the Artemis 3 flight to the surface of the Moon, near its south pole.
The astronauts’ hearing flight will take place in the fall of 2026 at the earliest. Before then, refueling must be practiced in space from one Starship to another.
SpaceX also needs to really demonstrate that Starship can get into lunar orbit. Landing on the moon would be preceded by at least one training flight by SpaceX in orbit around the moon.
In February, Nasa and SpaceX tested a device that would allow Nasa’s Orion spacecraft to dock with Starship in orbit around the moon. The one that would take astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the fall of 2026.
Launcher has already been attempted to be taken into space twice before, in April 2023 and November 2023.
On the first test flight, Starship did not detach from the lower stage of the launch vehicle, i.e. Super Heavy. Air traffic control blew up the rocket less than four minutes after takeoff.
On the second test flight, Starship already separated from the lower part, i.e. Super Heavy. In that case, 2 minutes and 40 seconds had passed since the flight.
Starship rose to a height of about 149 kilometers. However, air traffic control blew up the Starship after it failed to receive any data from space to Earth, says New Scientist.
of the United States in an inspection after the second explosion, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found 17 issues that SpaceX needed to fix before the third flight.
Of the comments, 10 were about the upper stage, i.e. Starship, and 7 were about the lower stage, Super Heavy.
In the remarks, the FAA addressed Starship’s fuel leaks, fire protection and propellant vents, among other things.
SpaceX was able to complete the repairs by the end of February, says the website Space com. The FAA issued the go-ahead on Wednesday.
