On April 17, plans to launch Starship were suspended due to a problem with the pressure valve. According to the official website of Space Exploration Technology Corporation, the "starship", the "most powerful" launch vehicle in history, is 120 meters high and 9 meters in diameter, which is larger than the company's existing "Falcon 9" and "Falcon Heavy" launch vehicles. . In addition to performing low-Earth orbit missions, this recyclable and reusable rocket can also perform missions such as manned landings on the moon and Mars.
On the morning of the 20th Eastern Time, the company's new generation of heavy-duty launch vehicle "Starship" and the spacecraft integration system conducted its first test launch in Texas, but the rocket exploded shortly after liftoff. It was because the staff took the initiative to detonate
The "Starship" heavy-duty launch vehicle launched by the US Space Exploration Technologies Corporation disintegrated unplanned over the Gulf of Mexico 3 minutes after launch, and exploded in mid-air. The spacecraft failed to enter the predetermined orbit. The US space exploration technology company was forced to abort the mission. After the launch failure, the team said that the test flight did not seem to be satisfactory enough, and they will continue to review the data and work hard for the next flight test. But the team also said it was more "successful" than they had hoped.
Musk, the founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies, said that the company will summarize what it has learned in this test and conduct the next test launch in "a few months." NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he looked forward to what SpaceX learned from this test and the next flight test. But according to physicists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States, the maximum altitude of the "Starship" rocket before the mission failed was only 39 kilometers, which is far from the internationally recognized space boundary of 100 kilometers.
Several of Starship's engines failed, lost altitude and began spinning, giving the spacecraft the command to terminate the flight, SpaceX said. SpaceX said that the spacecraft is equipped with a self-destruct mechanism in case of accidents to prevent the rocket from falling freely and threatening the safety of humans on the ground. Before the explosion, the starship successfully reached an altitude of 39,000 meters. And it can be seen from the video that multiple engines have stopped working and the rocket's body has tilted.
Before the launch of the starship, Musk once said that the success of the first flight is 50%. He said that as long as the explosion does not happen on the launch pad, then it is a success
The result was unfortunately what he said. After the mission failed, Musk tweeted: "Congratulations to the entire team for completing the amazing test flight mission of the 'Starship' spacecraft! We have learned a lot for a new starting point in a few months."
Although at least 7 previous test flights of the starship ended in failure, the pursuit of human progress will never stop. Musk said that the next test flight of the Starship may take place in a few months.
Again, win win waterjet also supports Musk's starship, hoping that the next launch will be successful.