SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes while landing after test flight | Science



SpaceX’s starship prototype exploded as it attempted to land after a test launch from the company’s rocket facility in Boca Chicago, Texas. A live video of Wednesday’s test showed a self – guided rocket landing following a controlled descent before the flame ball disappeared. Despite the disastrous results of the six-and-a-half-minute test, SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk was thrilled. “Tuesday, here we come !!” He tweeted. The Starship rocket destroyed in the crash is a 16-storey prototype built by Muskin’s private space agency to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo to the moon and Mars. The test aircraft aims to reach an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 meters), powered for the first time by SpaceX’s three newly built Raptor engines. SpaceX did not specify whether the rocket flew that high. Musk immediately said that the rocket’s “fuel header tank pressure was low” and “touchdown speed was high” when landing. The climbing stage was a success, receiving “all the data we needed” from the SpaceX test and praising the rocket. SpaceX made its first attempt to launch the Starship on Tuesday, but a problem with its raptor engines caused it to automatically shut down a second before the lift. SpaceX’s starship SN8 rocket exploded Wednesday in Boca Chicago, Texas. Photo: Jean Flewins / Reuters Combined with its super-heavy first-stage booster, the 394-foot (120 m) full-fledged starship rocket, the company’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle and the centerpiece of Kastur’s ambitions to create man – made space travel very affordable and regular. NASA has provided SpaceX $ 135 million to help build the starship, along with competing vehicles from rival companies Blue Origin, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and Lytos-owned Dinetics. All three companies are vying for futures contracts to build moon landers under NASA’s Artemis program, which calls for a series of human-lunar explorations over the next decade. Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, SpaceX is acquiring residential properties in the village of Boca Sica, north of the US-Mexico border in southeastern Texas, which Musk sees as “the future” gateway “to accommodate its expanding starship facilities.” .

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