For the third time, Elon Musk’s Starship became the center of attraction for Rocket – until then.
SpaceX’s latest heavy-duty launch vehicle prototype, the Box Chika from Texas, flew flawlessly into the skies on Wednesday in a test of altitude, then flew back to Earth to achieve the first direct landing for a starship model.
But the victory was short-lived. The automatic fire-suppression system trained the flow of water on still-burning flames at the base of the rocket, to be listed slightly to one side, disintegrating itself about eight minutes after the spacecraft was touched down.
This was the third attempt to end in Agnipol after a successful test flight for a starship developed by SpaceX to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.
For Musk, the founder of billionaire SpaceX, who is also the head of electric car maker Tesla, the results were mixed news.
SN8 in December and SN9 in February – Starship SN10 Safe, previous touchdown, came closer than the previous two models. In a tweet responding to the tempered congratulations from a fan of his work, Musk replied, “RIP SN10, honorable discharge.”
The video feed provided by SpaceX on the company’s YouTube channel cuts off moments after landing. But separate fan feeds flowing over the same social media platform showed that the base of the rocket suddenly exploded, crashing to the ground before it could throw the SN10 into the air and engulfing it in flames.
The full Starship rocket, which rises to 44,4-feet (150 m) when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is SpaceX’s next pay-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – much cheaper for human space travel. The center of Musk’s ambitions to create. And regular.
The first orbital starship flight is scheduled for the end of the year. Musk has said he intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusuko Mezawa around the moon with a starship in 2023.
