SpaceX | Starship rocket explodes during second test flight

(Starbase) SpaceX launched the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, on Saturday, whose two stages successfully separated before exploding, according to Elon Musk’s company.

“Trajectory of Starship nominal,” we could hear on SpaceX’s live video feed, a few minutes after the rocket took off. A first launch in the spring ended in a gigantic explosion.

The giant 120-meter-tall rocket ripped off the ground shortly after 7 a.m. local time (8 a.m. Eastern) from SpaceX’s Boca Chica base in far south Texas in the southern states. -United.

The module Starshipplaced atop the rocket successfully separated from the Super Heavy booster stage, but both parts of the rocket did not survive until their scheduled descent and exploded in flight, according to SpaceX.

The rocket is made up of two stages: the Super Heavy propulsion stage and its 33 engines, and the spaceship Starshipplaced above and which by extension gives its name to the entire rocket.

“What we believe at the moment is that the automatic flight termination system on the second stage appears to have triggered very late in the thrust,” explained a commentator on the video feed.

For space sector analyst Laura Seward Forczyk, “it was a fantastic partial success.” This launch “exceeded my expectations”, she explained to AFP.

The second test flight of SpaceX, the company of billionaire Elon Musk, is particularly closely scrutinized by NASA, which is counting on this spacecraft for its return missions to the Moon.

” Opportunity ”

The head of the American space agency, Bill Nelson, congratulated SpaceX on Saturday for the “progress” made in this launch, referring to an “opportunity to learn, then fly again”.

“Together, NASA and SpaceX will return humanity to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

On April 20, Starship had taken off for the first time in its full configuration. But several engines did not work, and SpaceX intentionally blew up the rocket after four minutes.

The takeoff had propelled a cloud of dust several kilometers from the launch pad, itself heavily damaged. Chunks of concrete were catapulted under the power of the engines, and a fire broke out in a nearby regional park.

The American air regulator (FAA) opened an investigation, before finally giving the green light on Wednesday for a second flight.

Over seven months, the launch pad was rebuilt, and a water “deluge” system was installed and tested. These downpours of water discharged when the engines are started must attenuate the acoustic waves, limiting vibrations.

However, associations are separately suing the FAA, accused of having incorrectly assessed the environmental impact of the new rocket.

During the first test, the two stages were unable to separate in flight before finally succeeding on Saturday.

The flight plan was the same as in April: the ship was to make an “almost complete tour of the Earth” and land in the Pacific, off the coast of Hawaii, Elon Musk had described.

Reusable

The development of Starship does not seem fast enough to fit in with the plans of NASA, which has contracted with SpaceX. A modified version of the machine must serve as a lunar lander to place astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

This mission, named Artemis 3, is officially planned for 2025 – a date which seems increasingly unrealistic.

Beyond the Moon, Elon Musk wants to make Starship “a widespread means of transportation to any destination in the solar system,” including Mars.

Its goal is the establishment of an autonomous colony on the red planet, in order to make humanity a multiplanetary species.

But the real innovation of Starship is that it must be entirely reusable, the two stages being designed to eventually return to their launch pad – thus reducing costs. Only the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is currently recovered.

Starship is both larger than NASA’s new megarocket, SLS (98 m), which took off for the first time a year ago, and the legendary Saturn V, the rocket of the Apollo lunar program (111 m).

The takeoff thrust of Starship is also about twice as powerful as these two launchers.