SpaceX has successfully conducted a test flight of its Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket to date. The launch occurred in Texas at 18:30 local time and lasted 60 minutes. Despite issues during the flight, including engine parts appearing to explode and the rocket’s flaps catching fire, the mission marked a significant turnaround after a series of earlier failures.
NASA plans to utilize a modified version of Starship in its Artemis program to send humans to the Moon by 2027. However, this timeline may be optimistic according to some experts. The company has reportedly invested billions into developing the Starship, with each launch estimated to cost around $100 million.
During the latest flight, all of the booster’s 33 engines fired successfully, leading to the separation of the booster from the spacecraft approximately seven minutes into the flight. Starship reached a maximum altitude of nearly 200 kilometers before returning to Earth. While parts of the rocket experienced stress during descent, this test was intended to gather extensive data.
SpaceX aims to certify Starship for human travel as early as next year, with plans to conduct uncrewed flights to Mars within the same timeframe. However, the recent string of three failed launches raised concerns about the future of the project and whether the company’s leadership is adequately focused, given Elon Musk’s involvement in U.S. politics.
The success of this test flight is seen as a necessary step for SpaceX but questions remain regarding the feasibility of meeting the 2027 Moon mission deadline. The competition with China to return humans to the Moon is also intensifying, prompting debate on whether the U.S. will achieve this goal in the projected timeframe.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly69z9lwnno?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss