the space rocket Starshipthe largest in the world, exploded Thursday minutes after the start of the first test in Texas, which was being followed by hundreds of people who had gathered in the vicinity of downtown Boca Chica to attend the premiere of this imposing space vehicle. of 120 meters high.
At 13:33 GMT (8:33 El Salvador time), Space X began the complete test of the entire Starship, composed of the rocket Super Heavy and the ship, also called Starship. The countdown was stopped 40 seconds before 1:28 p.m., the time the launch window began, to perform the last checks before liftoff. As reported by the presenters of the broadcast, there seemed to be some problem with the pressurization, but minutes later the countdown was reset and the long-awaited takeoff took place.
Everything seemed to go well for the first few minutes but when it was still visible from the ground, the vehicle exploded. Those attending the launch continued to applaud, however, as if it were part of the show, while the presenters closed the broadcast by assuring that it was a test and that it had been very exciting.
From SpaceX They point out that they will analyze all the available data to find out what has happened: «With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve the reliability of Starship while SpaceX tries to make life interplanetary », indicated through Twitter, the social network of his boss.
Elon Musk He prefers to keep what he has learned, as he stated in his account moments after the explosion: “Congratulations to the SpaceX team for this exciting launch of the Starship. We have learned a lot for the next release which will be in a few months.”
Elon Musk’s declared expectations for this test were not very high if we listen to what he had stated. Before the first attempt last Monday, the also owner of Tesla indicated that he would consider a success “anything that did not end with the destruction of the launch pad.” And the truth is that despite the explosion of the ship, the fact that the rocket was able to take off from the launch pad and complete the first phases of the flight can be considered a success, which was testing the most powerful rocket in the world.
Super Heavy It surpasses, albeit narrowly, the brand new Space Launch System (SLS) with which NASA carries out its Artemis lunar program. In the first test mission, Artemis 1, carried out last November, the rocket destroyed part of the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, disabling the elevators, due to its enormous power.
It was SpaceX’s second attempt to put this transport system into orbit for the first time designed to explore Earth orbit, the Moon, and in the future, Mars. Last Monday, the first test was suspended minutes before launch when a pressurization problem was detected in a rocket stage. Although the failure was discovered a few minutes before the scheduled time for launch, the engineers continued with the countdown until there were a few seconds left to rehearse other phases prior to takeoff.
PLANS TO GO TO THE MOON AND MARS
The ship Starship It is designed to transport cargo and crew -up to 100 people, according to SpaceX- but the objective of today’s flight was to test the systems, for which it was going to orbit the Earth and after an hour and a half from takeoff it would fall in the Pacific, in a point near Hawaii. Approximately a few minutes after takeoff, the first stage of the rocket would separate from the ship to carry out the return and re-entry maneuver to Earth, to land in a controlled manner in the Gulf of Mexico. A plan that could not be completed due to the explosion.
The ship Starship de Musk will also be part of NASA’s Artemis lunar program, as it has been the space agency’s chosen vehicle for its astronauts to reach the lunar surface on Artemis III, starting in 2025. It will be a modified version of Starship, which will have various configurations depending on the objective of each flight.
Before NASA astronauts go to the Moon, Japanese millionaire Yusuku Maezawa and his companions are scheduled to embark on the Starship for about a week-long sightseeing flight that will orbit the Moon. Whether this space adventure became a reality depended directly on the success of this test, since the scheduled schedule for the first civil mission to lunar orbit is in 2023, so it is very likely that after today’s failure, the Japanese mission will have to be postponed