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The prototype of the new rocket developed by the SpaceX company, owned by Elon Musk, exploded on Wednesday during a landing test in Texas (USA), EFE reports, assumed by Agrepres. Just a day before, the Starship rocket had lifted off a second before launch.
Starship took off from SpaceX’s launch base in Boca Chica, Texas, and ascended to a height of 12 kilometers, powered by three Raptor engines, before returning to the starting point, where it was supposed to land. During the flight, rocket-mounted video cameras captured several flames in the engine area.
When it returned to the ground, the rocket exploded and became a huge fireball. It all lasted 6 minutes and 42 seconds.
The destroyed rocket was a model known as a Starship, designed to carry a 100-ton payload into space.
Musk explained on Twitter that during the descent “the pressure in the rocket fuel tank was low”, which made the “landing speed very high.”
He said SpaceX had obtained “all the necessary information” from the test. And he tried to minimize this failure by posting the message: “Mars, here we go!”
Starship, a rocket that reaches a height of 120 meters when completed with the first stage of this heavy launcher, was designed to carry a crew of people and a 100-ton payload to the Moon and Mars. Starship is part of the range of next-generation launchers developed by SpaceX, 100% reusable and considered at the core of Elon Musk’s ambitions, who wants to make space travel more accessible.
Elon Musk has tried to lower expectations of the first suborbital flight of the Starship rocket with his new propulsion system, which uses three Raptor engines, predicting a 30% probability of success to reach an altitude of more than 12,190 meters. That altitude would be considerably higher than the levels reached during the previous two tests, conducted at altitudes of 152 meters.
Publisher: BP
