In an attempt to maintain the momentum of the construction of the enormous vehicle, SpaceX launched the sixth test flight of its Starship rocket on Tuesday.
SpaceX’s own Starbase facility, located close to Brownsville, Texas, is where the rocket took off. The flight of the Starship was empty of passengers.
After reaching space, the starship circled the Earth halfway before reentering the atmosphere and landing in the Indian Ocean.
After the rocket separated from the Starship, SpaceX intended to return the Super Heavy booster and land it on the arms of the launch tower. However, SpaceX stated in its webcast that the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico because it failed to meet the commit criteria required for the catch attempt.
As with every other test flight, SpaceX is advancing development by evaluating new Starship features, such as rekindling an engine in orbit and testing new heatshield components.
Furthermore, because of the late launch time, Starship performed its first splashdown in the Indian Ocean during the day.
Due to CEO Elon Musk’s tight relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, SpaceX usually hosts a group of VIPs to watch Starship missions. The sixth flight was no exception. Trump attended the launch on Tuesday, much as he did during his first term in 2020 when he traveled to Florida to witness SpaceX’s first manned launch.
Pushing the envelope
Since April 2023, SpaceX has conducted six spaceflight tests of the entire Starship rocket system, with the frequency of these flights progressively rising. The rocket’s more than 20-story-tall booster made a thrilling initial grab during its previous launch last month.
The Federal Aviation Administration verified that SpaceX had permission to proceed with the sixth flight following the fifth flight’s success.
However, there were some problems with the fifth launch, much like with its earlier test flights. In an audio recording that Musk shared on social media following the launch, SpaceX management disclosed that a timing problem with one of the rocket’s components caused Starship’s booster to almost miss the catch.
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The tape recorded an unnamed individual saying Musk, “We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower instead of [landing at] the tower, like, erroneously tell a healthy rocket to not try that catch.”
The booster was not captured by SpaceX. According to the company’s website, it upgraded the rocket’s booster’s gear to increase structural strength and redundancy.
The Starship system intends to become a new means of transporting people and goods beyond Earth and is made to be completely reusable. Additionally, NASA’s ambition to send humans back to the moon depends on the rocket. As part of NASA’s Artemis moon mission, SpaceX secured a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to employ Starship as a crewed lunar lander.
The tallest and most potent rocket ever launched is called Starship. Starship is approximately 30 feet in diameter and 397 feet tall when fully assembled atop the Super Heavy rocket.
The rocket’s trip to orbit is initiated by the 232-foot-tall Super Heavy booster. The 33 Raptor engines at its base generate 16.7 million pounds of thrust collectively, which is roughly twice as much as the 8.8 million pounds of thrust produced by NASA’s Space flight System rocket, which made its inaugural flight in 2022.
The 165-foot-tall starship itself is equipped with six Raptor engines, three of which are used in Earth’s atmosphere and three of which are used in space.
Liquid oxygen and liquid methane power the rocket. For launch, the entire system needs almost 10 million pounds of propellant.
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