Elon Musk’s company completed tests of the Starship rocket for flights to the moon and Mars (video)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX company conducted the 11th test of the reusable two-stage Starship rocket. It was the last flight before the start of tests of a new version of a giant rocket capable of delivering cargo and people to the moon and Mars, reports Space.
The Starship rocket, which consists of a Super Heavy booster (lower stage) and an upper stage — a Ship spacecraft — launched on October 14 at 02:23 Kyiv time from the SpaceX base in Texas. About seven minutes after launch, the Super Heavy booster made a soft landing on water in the Gulf of Mexico. 66 minutes after the launch, the Ship crashed in the Indian Ocean near Australia.
This flight was the final one for the current version of the Starship, which will be replaced by an even larger modification. At the same time, SpaceX managed to repeat the success of the August 10 test flight and break the series of previous failures.
At an altitude of 192 km, the Ship spacecraft deployed eight Starlink satellite simulators and restarted its engines during the suborbital flight. Returning to Earth, it withstood considerable heating during its entry into the atmosphere.
In the future, SpaceX plans to test improved versions of Starship designed for interplanetary flights. The current version of the missile, Version 2, reaches 123 meters when assembled. The next – Version 3 – will be 124.4 meters high, and Version 4 – already 142 meters.
SpaceX plans to return both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship spacecraft directly to the launch pad after each flight. This will make it possible to quickly prepare the rocket for a new launch and provide the ability to carry out several Starship launches per day from the same platform.
Starship is being developed in order to help humanity realize the exploration of Mars – the long-standing dream of the company’s founder, Elon Musk. In addition, NASA selected Starship as the first manned lander for the Artemis 3 mission. This mission will be the first landing of astronauts on the moon since 1972. If the schedule is met, Starship will land humans on the surface of the moon for the first time in 2027.
