SpaceX: Starship breaks in fireball, Elon Musk still beside himself with joy

melon Musk has taken another step towards his goal of manned flights to Mars. On the second attempt, the SN8 prototype of its Mars landing craft, Starship, took off for a test flight at the planned altitude of twelve kilometers. But there were problems with the engine and after a good six minutes of flight, the rocket crashed at the landing site at too great a speed on returning. The prototype with its shiny silver stainless steel case shattered in a huge explosion. However, Musks’ space company SpaceX spoke of an “Awesome Test”, that is, a “Super Test”.

As Musk wrote in a short message, the pressure in the fuel tank was too low on landing, causing high touchdown speed and the destruction of the missile: “But we have all the data we needed! Congratulations to the SpaceX team, to hell, yeah !! ”Tweeted the businessman, who is also in charge of the electric car company Tesla. Many things would have worked too.

It was also an extraordinary test. Tech entrepreneur and SpaceX founder Elon Musk had estimated the chances of success at only about 30 percent. He himself did not expect complete success. Too many novelties were tested for the first time. In Musk’s philosophy, failure in a test phase is not a catastrophe. This is the only way SpaceX can address what is technically feasible. This is nothing less than the development of the largest spacecraft of all time, which should also be reusable.

The flight, which now ended with a fireball, was the second attempt. On Tuesday, computers stopped cranking 1.3 seconds before takeoff due to an engine failure. The ignition was working now, although the countdown was temporarily interrupted a good two minutes before takeoff.

In a test unprecedented in the history of space, the unique 50-meter-tall rocket with folding wings lifted off at around 4:45 p.m. local time from a SpaceX test site in South Texas into the cloudless sky. Apparently one of the three newly developed Raptor engines already failed during the climb.

However, the return flight that included a complex flight maneuver in the air was successful. The prototype even headed exactly vertically to the landing site immediately next to the launch site, but crashed into a fireball when it touched down. “That was not bad for a first test, they survived most of the flight profile. They may have to improve a bit, “US space expert Jonathan McDowell said of the attempt.

The test was classified in advance as extremely demanding. For the first time, the three Raptor engines developed by Musk underwent a major flight test. In addition, the rocket’s complex control system was tested and fuel was pumped into the rocket during the flight.

Space enthusiasts have been waiting for the start for days. Upfront, there were four test fires of the new Musk-developed Raptor engines and refueling attempts, for the first time with liquid methane and oxygen in a SpaceX rocket. Musk chose methane because this fuel will also be produced on Mars.

The now-wrecked SN8 prototype is the third flight-tested predecessor model for the future Starship rocket. Starship is planned as the top stage of a giant 120-meter rocket to conquer the solar system. Musk is gradually working his way into mega-missile flight. In August 2019, the Starhopper model was already flying at a height of 150 meters. Now followed the first flight of a large prototype.

Even if only smoldering debris from the prototype remained, the upcoming SN9 prototype is largely assembled already. There were repeated setbacks in the development of the Starship rocket when smaller prototypes were destroyed in testing.

Musk, a 49-year-old tech entrepreneur, had already downplayed the chances of success in the run-up to the flight attempt. The main objective of flight is to gain experience and learn. SpaceX explained in advance that the success of the flight was not measured by a completely fluid process, but by acquiring as much knowledge as possible. This is an attempt, anything can happen, according to industry experts beforehand.

Musk sees the Starship rocket as his contribution to saving the world. Recently, receiving the Axel Springer award in Berlin, the tech entrepreneur declared that he wanted to allow humanity to leap into space. As Musk explained in an interview with Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, he assumes that people will land on Mars for the first time in six years. “If we’re lucky, we can do it in four years,” says the tech entrepreneur, who also runs the electric car company Tesla.

Driven by his idea of ​​flight to Mars, Musk developed the super rocket. Changed the technical concept several times. According to the latest draft, his Mars rocket would be 120 meters high and 30 feet in diameter. It should be able to lift more than 100 tons into a near-Earth orbit or provide space for up to 100 astronauts. Another variant would be hypersonic flights between terrestrial metropolises, faster than once with the Concorde. The 5,000-ton reusable two-stage rocket would be larger than the giant American Saturn V rocket, which paved the way for the moon landing in 1969. First, the components must be tested.

With his extremely ambitious space plans, Musk can aim for big hits. A Dragon cargo capsule from your company has just been fully automatically docked to the International Space Station for the first time. His Dragon Crew capsule, which carried four people to the ISS, is already docked there. His SpaceX group, which was founded just 18 years ago, has become a pacemaker in the industry around the world. This year alone, 23 SpaceX rockets have already been launched. No other company is sending more rockets into space. Musk is the first and so far the only one to build recycling rockets for satellites or manned capsules whose propulsion stages are reusable.