Wednesday December 09, 2020
SpaceX test fails
Missile flight canceled just before take-off
One second before the engines ignite, an important test flight by SpaceX is aborted. The space company does not explain why, but it does not want to rate the aborted attempt as a failure either. In the future SpaceX wants to bring people to the moon and Mars.
An important test flight of Tesla founder Elon Musk's Martian rocket by the US space company had to be canceled shortly before takeoff. "Success in such a test is not measured by the achievement of certain goals, but by how much we can learn," wrote SpaceX on its website.
The automatic start abort of the first suborbital flight of the unmanned 16-story Starship prototype took place one second before the engines started, as could be heard on the livestream. The test was to use three new "Raptor" engines to reach an altitude of over 12,000 meters before landing on a concrete slab near the launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. Musk wants to first fly humans to the moon and eventually to Mars.
The Tesla boss has meanwhile also moved his residence from California to Texas. He justified the move with his business activities in the southern state. His space company is developing the rockets there and the electric car manufacturer is building a large production facility near the Texas capital Austin.
Save taxes thanks to moving
For Musk, the move should also be financially worthwhile, as Texas doesn't levy its own income tax. In California he has had to pay significantly higher taxes so far. The soaring Tesla share recently made the entrepreneur the second richest man in the world. On paper, he owns $ 155 billion, according to financial news agency Bloomberg.
Musk got into a dispute with the California authorities in May about the corona restrictions at the time, which had led to a Tesla plant being closed for several weeks. On Tuesday, he called California "great". The most populous and economically strongest US state has gotten too used to its success.
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