“Starship 11 will not return, don’t expect a landing”, about ten minutes after takeoff, the prototype of SpaceX’s space shuttle, SN11, was already given up. Disappearance engulfed by an unusual fog, which enveloped the Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, where the company Elon Musk is testing the spaceship of the future, the one that at the head of the most powerful rocket ever built, should in the future push man towards the Moon and then Mars. In fact, Starship crashed to pieces on the launch pad shortly after. The falling fragments were immortalized during the live stream.
Everything seemed to be going well until the images were lost and the communication came: “Apparently we have lost all data from the vehicle and the team is of course away from the ramp” to avoid the rain of debris. SpaceX technicians will be busy analyzing the data and understanding what caused the explosion. Elon Musk has made it known summarily, on Twitter, that “something important happened after the ignition of the engines for the return”.
New prototypes
Apart from perhaps the residents, usually forced to leave their homes at short notice in view of Musk’s tests, no one is worried, in Boca Chica, they are people used to explosions. In fact, we are already thinking about new flights. From SN11 we will go directly to SN15, skipping prototypes 12, 13 and 14, Musk himself confirmed this by replying via Twitter to those who asked him about the next launches. SN15 has “hundreds of engineering, avionics / software and engine improvements – he wrote – hopefully those improvements will solve this problem too.” But it certainly doesn’t stop there. He is already talking about SN20 which will be able to orbit “with heat shield and stage separation system (propulsion ed)”. But he adds that “the SN20 + vehicles (and subsequent eds) will need many flight attempts to survive the reentry tests at Mach 25 (25 times the speed of sound ed) and land intact”. Translated: expect more barrels. The engineers of SpaceX and Musk himself, know in fact that in designing vehicles to get so far, the Moon and then Mars, the “fireworks” are to be taken into account.
(reuters)
Test room
SN11 was the fourth Starship flight, the other three, SN9, 10 and 11, also exploded, but none during the flight phase, they had all touched the ground, in the first two cases in a rather “hard” way. Last time, March 4th, it seemed like a total success. The detachment from the ramp, the ascent up to ten kilometers of altitude, the maneuver in a horizontal position and then the return with the ignition of the retractors, the soft landing. It looked like a triumph, but after a few seconds Starship suddenly exploded.
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SpaceX assume
Musk’s optimism and confidence in his team’s work is also confirmed by the fact that Boca Chica’s Starbase will expand. Needless to say, Elon Musk made the announcement with a tweet. “SpaceX assumes, there is an increasing need for engineers, technicians, builders and miscellaneous personnel. Starbase will grow by several thousand people in the next year or two.”
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