The Starship SN9 prototype is launched from the company’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX
SpaceX successfully landed a prototype Starship after a high-altitude flight test for the first time on Wednesday, marking a big step forward for Elon Musk’s company in rocket development.
But minutes after landing softly on a concrete platform, the rocket prototype exploded. The cause of the explosion, or whether it was intentional or not, was not immediately clear.
The company’s test blew up the Starship rocket serial number 10 or SN10. SpaceX aimed to launch the prototype up to 10 miles high.
The Starship prototype is about 150 feet tall, 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 first versions of the rocket introduced in 2019.
Musk’s company is developing Starship with the goal of launching cargo and people on missions to the Moon and Mars.
The SN10 flight was similar to the ones SpaceX conducted in December and February, when it tested the SN8 and SN9 prototypes, respectively. The previous two rockets completed several development objectives, including aerodynamic tests, shutting down the engines successively and launching in the orientation to land, but both prototypes exploded on impact while attempting to land, unable to brake enough.
Like SN8 and SN9, the goal of SN10 flight was not necessarily to reach maximum altitude, but to test several key parts of the Starship system. SpaceX fired all three engines for takeoff and then shut them down one by one in sequence as the rocket approached the top of the planned flight height.
SN10 then transferred the propellant from the main tanks to the head tanks, before launching itself for the “belly flop” re-entry maneuver, giving it an air-controlled descent with the four rocket fins. Then, in the final moments of descent, SpaceX launched the rocket and returned it to a vertical orientation, firing the Raptor engines to slow down until landing.
Starship is one of two “Manhattan Projects” that SpaceX is developing simultaneously, and the other is its Starlink satellite Internet program. Musk has previously estimated that it will cost about $ 5 billion to fully develop Starship, although SpaceX has not revealed how much it has invested so far in the program.
Last month, the company raised $ 850 million in its latest capital fundraiser at a valuation of $ 74 billion.
Musk remains “highly confident” that Starship “will be safe enough for human transportation by 2023,” an ambitious goal as the company began rocket development and testing in early 2019.
But Musk’s timeline is key, as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has paid for a spaceship flight around the moon in 2023. Maezawa announced Tuesday that he is inviting eight members of the public to join his mission. DearMoon, that will be a six day trip to the moon and back.
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