what challenge does Starship, the most powerful rocket in the world, represent?

It is finally Saturday, November 18 that SpaceX will attempt to relaunch its most powerful Starship rocket ever built in the world. The takeoff initially scheduled for Friday afternoon was postponed by 24 hours due to a problem with an aileron.

This is a completely legitimate precaution because on April 20, Starship’s first flight attempt ended in a fireball, four minutes after takeoff. SpaceX teams had deliberately exploded the rocket in the sky of Texas, several engines having failed, and the detachment of the launcher not having occurred as planned. The launch pad itself was damaged by this failed takeoff.

>> Starship / Space X: will Elon Musk’s rocket succeed in its mission?

Since then, around sixty modifications have been made to this rocket, the largest and most powerful in the world. The launch area was rebuilt, with a “deluge system” so that torrents of water were poured when the engines were started to limit vibrations. “But this takeoff may completely fail,” recalls Olivier Sanguy from the Cité de l’espace in Toulouse, “because we remain in the logic of a test flight of a totally extraordinary rocket.” Starship initially weighs 5,000 tonnes and measures 120 meters. This is the height of a 48-story building. For takeoff, 33 engines must be operated simultaneously, this is an unprecedented technical challenge.

The planned flight plan

SpaceX has a firing window on Saturday from 2 p.m. French time, or 7 a.m. at the Boca Chica base in Texas. The flight plan will be the same as that planned in April. The stage containing the engines must detach a little more than two minutes after takeoff, and fall somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship must continue its ascent and normally make an almost complete tour of the earth, before also diving somewhere in the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii. There is no question here of attempting to recover the floors even if this is Elon Musk’s project in the long term.

On Saturday, the operational side of the takeoff will be tested and it is already a strategic milestone, because NASA is counting on this spacecraft for its future Artemis missions returning to the moon, officially from the end of 2025.