The launch of SpaceX’s Starship, the largest rocket in history, is live

SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, minutes after liftoff from the launch pad in South Texas. The spacecraft did not reach orbit, but It is not a fatal flaw.

Before launch, company founder Elon Musk tempered expectations, saying it would take several attempts for the Starship to succeed in the test flight, which would need to reach enough speed to enter orbit before landing. Hawaii

On Twitter, the company said teams would continue to review the data and work toward the “next flight test.”

Minutes after liftoff, SpaceX’s Starship Experience “A quick unplanned extraction”. Things went wrong when the booster tried to separate from the upper stage. The propeller started spinning and suddenly disappeared.

Despite the decision, applause was heard at SpaceX headquarters. A rocket leaving the launch pad was considered a great success..

World’s largest and most powerful rocket system has gone into space.

The launch from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border, was scheduled for 8:28 a.m. local time and lifted off a few minutes later than planned.

In the final seconds, its 33 Raptor engines fired simultaneously to propel the ship into the atmosphere. The 394-foot-long vehicle lifted off from the SpaceX starbase in Texas and the test flight lasted an hour and a half.

The ship’s Raptor engines cool down in preparation for takeoff.SpaceX announced in a tweet.

Fueling the top of the starship and super heavy propellant has already begun and all seems to be going according to plan.

The starship, seen above the super-heavy rocket, is covered 18,000 hexagonal black plates. About Heat shields It is designed to protect it from flare-ups that occur during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere after flight. The plates cover only one side of the starship, the “belly”, as the vehicle re-enters horizontally.

That was the true innovation of Starship Should be fully reusableSomething Musk believes Achievable in “two or three years”.. In this first test, there will be no attempt to recover one of the rocket’s two stages, but eventually it will.

“We designed the Starship to be as similar to flight operations as possible”Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, explained in February.

The idea of ​​a reusable launcher is Musk’s grand strategy Reduces prices. He noted that each Starship flight would eventually cost only “a few million” dollars. It’s a must for the billionaire, who believes humans will need hundreds of starship rockets to become a multiplanetary species.

On Thursday, the flight schedule is as follows: Three minutes after takeoff, The super-heavy booster should separate from the starship and fall into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The six-engined starship will continue its ascent to an altitude of more than 150 kilometers, completing a near-Earth orbit before landing. Splashes down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii 90 minutes after launch.

But accomplishing all this in the first test run will be a feat. The goal is above all else Collect as much data as possible To improve the following prototypes. “If it goes into orbit, it will be a huge success,” Musk said, adding that he hopes the launch pad won’t be destroyed when the Superheavy’s engines explode because it could take “months” to rebuild.

Elon Musk had tweeted a few hours earlier that all systems were ready for takeoff.

Launching from Starbase, SpaceX’s space base in Boca Chica, Texas Opens a New Window. 8:28 AM Central Time (10:28 a.m. Argentina time) and will last approximately one hour.

Is he The largest and most powerful rocket ever builtWith raised Transporting people to the Moon and Mars.

Starship from Elon Musk’s SpaceX Stainless steel and has 33 main engines and 16.7 million pounds of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January, enough to reach orbit. As for its strength, the Starship can carry up to 250 tons and can accommodate 100 people on a mission to Mars.

The six-engine spacecraft has a spread of 50 meters at its height. SpaceX expects to use Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including its own Starlinks Internet service, before sending a person. Starship easily dwarfs NASA’s moon rockets: the Apollo-era Saturn V and the Artemis program’s space launch system recorded its first lunar mission late last year. It also surpassed the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which did not fly for a minute and exploded with no one on board.

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