SpaceX’s space rocket launched on Thursday exploded during its test flight.
Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX successfully launched the new generation Starship for a test flight on Thursday afternoon Finnish time.
In other respects, however, the test flight did not go as planned, as the annealed world’s largest launch vehicle exploded shortly after launch.
The whole consisting of SpaceX’s Starship capsule and Super Heavy launch vehicle was more than 120 meters long, which means it was bigger than, for example, the famous Statue of Liberty in New York City.
The test flight of the world’s largest launch vehicle did not go according to plan. Reuters
The Starship was supposed to separate from the launch vehicle about three minutes after launch, but the separation failed. The ship and the launch vehicle were seen rolling before it exploded. Total destruction occurred about four minutes after launch.
At its best, Starship with its launchers had reached a height of 32 kilometers.
Musk commented on the matter on Twitter.
– Congratulations to the Space-X team on the exciting test launch of Starship, he writes.
– We learned a lot for the next test launch to be carried out in a couple of months.
Second try
Attempts had already been made to launch Starship and its launch vehicle on Monday, April 17. At that time, however, it was decided to postpone the launch due to problems with the pressure valve.
The decision to postpone the launch was made at the last minute, because when it happened, there were only a few minutes left before the launch.
When SpaceX’s air traffic control announced the problem, it decided to turn the planned test flight into a training situation. On Monday, the countdown was allowed to continue as normal and the air traffic control reviewed the different phases of the departure in the exercise.
The exercise was stopped only 40 seconds before the launch.
Unlike Nasa, SpaceX has demonstrated its willingness to fail in its test flights. Musk has said that private companies also benefit from an understanding of what goes wrong.
Musk has said that the purpose of Starship development is to make humans an interplanetary species. His plans also include colonizing Mars to save humanity in case Earth is faced with some kind of destruction.
Numerous people watched the Starship launch from SpaceX’s Spacebase center in Texas. GO NAKAMURA