Starship awaits approval from U.S. regulators for third test flight
Last year’s first and second launches were valuable failures… Return to Earth after entering space and try again
The space passenger ship ‘Starship’ launched by the American private space company SpaceX will attempt its third launch as early as next week.
Space
Starship went on two test flights in April and November last year, but both failed. However, although both Starship launches failed to land safely, SpaceX self-assessed that both experiments achieved successful results.
In the first launch, six of the 33 Raptor engines shut down or burst into flames and exploded in the air just four minutes after launch. However, at the time, Space
The second launch went through more than 1,000 aircraft upgrades since the first launch, but still failed after 8 minutes. However, the flight time was doubled compared to the first experiment, and all 33 of the most important Raptor engines were successfully ignited, showing significant progress.
SpaceX emphasized that it achieved many major goals through the second launch and obtained a lot of data for improving the Starship aircraft. The explanation is that this data is significant in that it was obtained in an actual flight environment rather than in a laboratory.
In the upcoming third launch, we will again attempt two-stage ascent propulsion, opening and closing the Starship payload door, demonstrating propellant transfer, lighting the Raptor engine for the first time in outer space, and Starship’s re-entry to Earth. Starship will return to the waters of the Indian Ocean if all test launch procedures are successfully completed.
Starship is 120m long and 9m in diameter, making it the largest and highest-performance rocket ever, surpassing the Saturn V (110.6m long), which was built for lunar exploration during the Apollo program. The 33 Raptor engines mounted on the first stage of the Super Heavy rocket have a total thrust of 7,590 tons, which is more than twice that of the Saturn V.
The rocket’s propulsion is powerful, but the most important thing is the Starship, which functions as both a second-stage rocket and a spacecraft. Starship serves as a spacecraft that can accommodate 80 to 120 people, and is capable of flying in outer space by generating its own thrust like a rocket.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is known to have planned a total of 148 rocket launches this year alone, including the Starship test launch. This is 1.5 times the number of 98 meetings last year.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.