SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes as it lands after a 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 the test on Wednesday 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 that was 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 robot engines. SpaceX It is not clear whether the rocket flew that high.

Musk said the rocket’s “fuel header tank pressure was low” when landing, “touchdown speed will be high” following the crash. He said that SpaceX had received “all the data we needed” from the test and appreciated the successful ascent of the rocket.

SpaceX made its first attempt to launch the Starship on Tuesday, but the problem with its raptor engines should have stopped automatically a second before the lift.

The full-fledged starship rocket, combined with its super-heavy first-stage booster, stands at 394 feet (120 m), the centerpiece of Muskin’s ambitions to make the company’s next-generation fully reusable missile vehicle and human space travel more 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, to accommodate Musk’s future “gateway” to its expanding starship facilities.