SpaceX Starship SN11 soars in test flight before explosion

 

SpaceX Starship SN11 soars in test flight before explosion

SpaceX’s prototype Starship SN11 rocket has joined the ghosts of its siblings in rocket heaven, after an airborne explosion during a test flight on Tuesday, March 30. On the SN11 unmanned test flight, SpaceX’s prototype interplanetary rocket took off from the development facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 8 a.m. local time (6.30 p.m. IST) on Tuesday amid heavy fog, with little or no visibility. It flew 10 km (6.2 miles) before a loud explosion was heard, and pieces of debris were seen flying near the launch pad.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, tweeted an update minutes after the explosion occurred, citing a problem with the engine. “… Engine 2 had problems on the ascent and did not reach the operating chamber pressure during landing, but, in theory, it was not necessary,” he said. A physical examination of the debris will be important to reconstruct “something significant” that happened shortly after the engines were fired for landing, he continued. In a previous tweet, Musk mocked the catastrophe, saying that “at least the crater [was] in the right place. ”

The foggy weather launch was unusual for a prototype Starship, with the spacecraft barely visible from cameras installed near the launch pad. The cameras captured SN11’s flaps capturing the wind above the clouds before its ill-fated descent. SpaceX’s own cameras froze just as the spacecraft’s powerful Raptor engines were turned back on for a planned soft landing. With poor visibility on the ground, the only thing that seems clear so far is that SN11 exploded in midair.

The SN11 test flight is the latest in an aggressive series of back-to-back tests for the SpaceX Starship prototype. In the past four months, the world has witnessed SN8, SN9, and SN10 take off – all followed by explosions during landing (except SN10, which exploded minutes after making a safe landing).

Future iterations: SN15, SN20, and beyond

The next batch of spacecraft are upgraded versions of current prototypes, starting with SN15, according to a CNET report. In his subsequent tweets, Musk shared that SN15 was due to launch to the launch pad in the next few days, sporting “hundreds of design improvements to structures, avionics/software and engine” that could overcome the problem that ended mid-SN11. air blast.

However, the next big leap in Starship technology will be seen with the SN20, Musk clarified. The series beginning with SN20 will have “orbit capability,” featuring the heat shield and staging system that bring it considerably closer to being a human-rated spacecraft. Musk predicts that these vehicles will need “many flight attempts” to survive re-entry into the atmosphere and a safe landing.

The starship was built to carry humans to Mars one day, but will also be used on the dear moon mission, SpaceX’s “first civilian mission to the moon” scheduled for no earlier than 2024. The only confirmed member of the dear moon crew, a Japanese billionaire and businessman Yusaku Maezawa is on the hunt for eight crew members who will fly around the moon and return to Starship.