Starship was successfully launched on SpaceX’s second attempt

This Saturday at 10 am (Brasília time), SpaceX successfully launched the Starship spacecraft, which is considered the world’s most powerful spacecraft so far.. This is the second flight attempt; In April, Elon Musk’s company had already sent a similar spacecraft, but the launch failed and the rocket exploded due to a problem with its Super Heavy propellant.

In the second version, All engines were successfully started and Starship took off into space. and fortunately, it was more successful than the last attempt, which lasted no more than three minutes. After approximately four minutes, the first two stages, the booster and the capsule, were successfully disconnected and the spacecraft continued advancing towards Earth orbit.

Watch Starship’s second integrated flight test https://t.co/cahoRQ72lm

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) 17 November 2023

Starship, considered the most powerful space rocket in history, is 121 meters long and equipped with 33 engines in the first stage and 6 engines in the second stage. Sometime after SpaceX’s live broadcast, the presenters stated that they lost contact with the spacecraft and that it probably exploded into Earth’s orbit, and even if this happened, they considered the launch to be a great success anyway.

“A 120-meter-high, fully stacked Starship is not only the most powerful launch vehicle in the world, but also the longest. In terms of more technical measurement, the Starship is about the size of a Mechagodzilla. Today’s flight test will introduce a new stage separation method on Starship called hot staging,” SpaceX said in an official post on X (formerly Twitter).

Starship and SpaceX

Just like the first time, The second flight test was also unmanned and launched at the SpaceX air base in Boca Chica, United States. Although the company’s experts have no hope that the ship will complete its entire journey, the mission of the new venture is to return to Earth by sending the ship into the planet’s orbit; All this takes about 1 hour 30.

During the first launch, Starship exploded just three minutes after takeoff, but Elon Musk’s company celebrated that the ship managed to get off the ground – SpaceX’s ultimate goal was not to reuse the ship. Being a test operation, all flights, including unsuccessful ones, are considered important for collecting data to improve the mission. to the long-awaited manned Starship launches.

Starship is designed to carry up to 100 people on long-range missions such as to the Moon, Mars and back to Earth.. In fact, it is the spacecraft that will be used in NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which aims to send astronauts back to the Moon surface in mid-2025.

“Starship’s first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that directly contributed to various improvements to vehicle and ground infrastructure to increase the likelihood of success on future flights. The second flight test will introduce a hot stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (Super Heavy TVC) system for Raptor engines, as well as pad base reinforcements and water-cooled steel flame deflector and many other improvements,” was published on SpaceX’s official page.

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