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SpaceX’s Starship rocket has successfully completed its first full flight and landing in the ocean.
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Surviving the ultra-hot, high-stress drop into Earth’s atmosphere is a huge milestone.
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Starship is closer to realizing Elon Musk’s dream to reduce the costs of space flights and colonize Mars.
SpaceX’s ambitious megarocket, Starshipjust proved that he can not only fly into space, but also survive the extreme fall back to Earth practically intact.
For the first time on Thursday, both stages of the rocket – the Super Heavy Booster and Starship rocket – reached a major new milestone in terms of reusability when they both landed in the water after launch.
The Super Heavy touched down in the Gulf of Mexico minutes after takeoff. But Starship’s fall is even more impressive. The rocket flew into space, briefly sailed above the Earth and shouted back through the atmosphere at about 17,000 mph, supporting ultraheated plasma reaching temperatures of up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
As the Starship approached the Indian Ocean, it fired its engines in an effort to turn upward and slow down, practicing a controlled landing. It’s unclear how smooth the landing was, as the spacecraft was clearly destroying chunks on the live feed and visibility became extremely poor as it approached the water.
Whatever happened, the ship completed its mission by sinking into the ocean.
Believe it or not, launching cannonballs into the sea is big business for Starship. The last time he attempted the feat, in March, crumbled in the middle of autumn.
Now Starship and its Super Heavy booster are a big step closer to fulfilling its revolutionary promise of being the first fully reusable rocket system capable of reaching orbit. If Starship can translate this ocean landing into a land landing, it could reduce the cost of space flights tenfold.
Then, of course, there is Elon Musk’s ambitions on Mars. Starship is the vehicle that was supposed to build your city on the red planet, with a population of 1 million people.
“No rocket before this one has had the potential to extend life to another planet,” Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002 with this same purpose, said in a speech in front of Starship at the company’s Texas facility in April.
Starship’s fourth flight into space
The giant launch system, standing taller than the Statue of LibertyFired up its Raptor engines and roared past the launch pad in Texas on Thursday morning.
The launch was not perfect – one engine failed to ignite. But the rocket still worked.
Just like in your last flight in Marchthe rocket’s Super Heavy booster separated from the Starship rocket high above Earth, allowing the winged spacecraft to continue in space.
The booster fell back to Earth, practiced firing its engines to lower itself as if it were landing on solid ground, and touched down in the Gulf of Mexico.
This marked SpaceX’s first vehicle return goal for flight. Next up was Starship itself.
In its last fall back to Earth, in March, Starship lost communication. SpaceX eventually declared it “lost,” likely broken or blown up by the stress of reentering the atmosphere.
But on Thursday the rocket survived the crash, falling into the ocean and completing its first full flight.
But he was not unscathed. One of its flaps began to visibly rip and tear mid-fall, and the camera offering live viewing cracked.
Next step: pick up the rocket with the ‘chopsticks’
No orbital launch system on Earth is fully reusable. SpaceX pioneered the reuse of a rocket’s lower stage – its booster – with the Falcon 9, the flagship that carries NASA missions and Starlink satellites into orbit.
Starship-Super Heavy is about to be the first system to also reuse the upper stage – the spacecraft that goes into orbit after the booster drops.
In fact, a Starship prototype has already proven that it could descend to a soft landing from a six-mile flight above Texas, albeit after several explosive failed attempts. But returning from orbital heights to land in one piece is another feat.
On its next flight, SpaceX may attempt to capture the Super Heavy booster with giant “chopsticks” at its launch tower in Texas.
“I think the chances of actually getting the boost with the tower are probably 80% or 90% this year,” Musk said in his April speech. “Which is crazy. In fact, when we first talked about it, it seemed crazy.”
As for Starship, the upper stage, it may not descend from space to an actual landing pad until next year, he said.
“We just need to make sure we can get through the high-heat part of reentry reliably, and then we bring the ship back and land on the tower as well,” Musk said.
Read the original article at Business Insider
