Friday, November 17 will be the day of truth for Starship, SpaceX’s megarocket, which will begin its second test flight at 7 a.m. CT (2 p.m. CET). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given the green light for this new launch.
On April 20, for the first time, Starship, the largest rocket in history, took off from the Boca Chica base, Texas (United States). Although it managed to safely leave the launch pad, it disintegrated three minutes after takeoff, at an altitude of 30,000 meters.
SpaceX was forced to detonate it after detecting a fire on board. The company therefore failed to fly the upper stage of the rocket, called Starship, above the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and crashing into the ocean.
“Starship’s first flight test yielded numerous lessons that directly contributed to several improvements to the vehicle and ground infrastructure to increase the chances of successful future flights“, however commented SpaceX on its site.
A huge challenge for SpaceX
According to federal agencies, debris from the rocket explosion was scattered over 155 hectares, on the SpaceX site and in the Boca Chica park. A forest fire devastated nearly 2 ha and a “concrete cloud” scattered material up to 10 km northwest of the launch pad site. The FAA therefore grounded Starship until SpaceX took corrective action, including a redesign of the vehicle to prevent leaks and fires. For now, the FAA has granted SpaceX permission to fly Starship for a single flight. If all goes well, Starship will fly around our planet before crashing off the coast of ‘Hawaii.
“The second flight test will demonstrate a hot stage separation system and a new electronic thrust vector control (TVC) system for the Super Heavy Raptor engines, as well as platform foundation reinforcements and a flame deflector in water-cooled steel, among many other improvements“, specifies Starship.
The objective is to successfully complete the other stages of the mission, namely the detachment of the first stage (Super Heavy), which takes on board the 33 engines of the launcher, three minutes after takeoff. It is at this moment that the six engines of the second stage, called Starship and equipped with fins, must ignite to allow it to continue its ascent, up to more than 150 km of altitude, thus beginning a quasi-tour from Earth for more than an hour, before falling back into the Pacific.
The stakes are enormous for SpaceX, NASA having chosen this rocket to once again take astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission. This aims for a return of man to the Earth’s natural satellite by 2025.
Sources: SpaceX, Engadget