SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft destroyed in mega rocket launch | Global News Avenue

SpaceX launches its massive super heavy starship giant rocket on it seventh test flight On Thursday, the first stage booster was successfully “caught” back on the launch pad, but the new generation Starship upper stage spacecraft was lost, which apparently broke apart on arrival in space.

Telemetry data 8 minutes and 27 seconds after Starship launch was frozen due to an unexpected engine shutdown or failure. SpaceX later confirmed the ship’s destruction Post on Xusing a tongue-in-cheek description:

“Starship experienced rapid, unscheduled disintegration during an ascent burn. The team will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand the root cause. Success comes from what we learn through tests like this, today “Flights will help us improve starship reliability.”

“We (lost) all communications with the ship,” one SpaceX launch commentator said of the Starship. “This essentially tells us that there is an abnormality in the upper level.” After a moment, he confirmed: “We did lose the upper level.”

The Federal Aviation Administration also reported delays of up to an hour at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport due to “unusual rocket launches.”

The giant rocket blasted off from SpaceX’s Gulf Coast manufacturing and flight test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 5:37 p.m. ET, firing up its 33 methane-burning Raptor engines to generate up to 16 million pounds of thrust.

Consuming 40,000 pounds of propellant per second, the booster climbed from the launch pad and flew gracefully eastward on top of a long trail of burning exhaust gas visible for dozens of miles around.

Two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff, the super-heavy spacecraft crashed, and the starship continued to climb into space relying on the power of six Raptor engines.

At the same time, the booster flipped over, reigniting several engines to reverse course and return to Boca Chica, where the unique robotic arm on the rocket launcher opened and waited.

The Super Heavy plummeted back to Earth tail first, then reignited its engines, tilted as it turned toward the mat, and then landed directly between the chopsticks, which closed smoothly to capture mid-air prey.

this first such capture Last October’s event was a success, wowing thousands of cheering residents and visitors. But super heavy duty is used next such flight The sensor was moved to the Gulf of Mexico for splashdown a month later after the launch damaged sensors on the tower that were needed to help guide the descending booster into position.

New sensors with stronger shielding were installed to eliminate such damage, and SpaceX engineers are optimistic they will soon be able to restore the Super Heavy booster with the same regularity as the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s key components) as shown. Push for lower launch costs.

In keeping with the reusability theme, the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines include one that flew on a previous test flight to demonstrate its ability to perform multiple missions.

Most of the upgrades tested Thursday are built into what SpaceX calls a “new generation” of Starship. Two minutes after the booster “landed”, the upper stage reached space.

But the loss of telemetry data left flight controllers in the dark about what might have happened during the final stages of ascent.

For these initial test flights, Starship will not attempt to enter orbit. Instead, they circle halfway around the Earth, descend belly-first in hellish atmospheric friction, then flip their noses upward to splash down tail-first in a rocket-driven splashdown into the Indian Ocean.

For Thursday’s flight, key test goals include restarting the Raptor’s engines in space and deploying 10 Starlink virtual models to test the new satellite delivery system, which works a bit like a Pez candy dispenser. Once the rocket is put into service, Starship is expected to launch thousands of Starlinks.

Other upgrades include smaller stabilizer fins (repositioned to reduce their exposure to reentry heating), improved propulsion avionics, redesigned fuel supply lines, and a 25 percent increase in propellant volume to improve performance.

The redesigned avionics system includes a more powerful flight computer, new antennas that combine Starlink and GPS navigation satellite signals, “smart batteries” and power supply units that drive two dozen high-voltage actuators and redesigned navigation sensors.

SpaceX has also added additional cameras, with more than 30 on board, to transmit live video and data to the ground using operating Starlink satellites, providing a direct view of critical systems.

While the spacecraft is designed to be fully reusable, SpaceX has not yet attempted to capture the returning Starship or Falcon 9’s upper stage.

But Thursday’s test flight featured a number of experiments to test various heat shield improvements, including metal tiles and active cooling devices, as well as virtual starship snap-on fittings to learn more about how they handle the heat of reentry. .

SpaceX said on its website: “The new year will be a transformative year for Starship, and our goal is to bring the entire system online and perform increasingly ambitious missions as we continue to iterate, Capable of launching humans and cargo into Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars.”

Getting the Super Heavy Starship flying regularly is critical to NASA’s Artemis moon program. NASA is paying SpaceX to develop a variant of the Starship upper stage to carry astronauts to the lunar surface in the 2027 timeframe.

In order to send a Starship to the moon, SpaceX must first launch it into low-Earth orbit, where a series of other Starship “tankers” must rendezvous, dock and automatically refuel the moon-bound craft, So that it can break out of the earth’s orbit and go to deep space.

Astronauts blast off atop a NASA Space Launch System rocket in the Orion capsule, then rendezvous with a starship in lunar orbit and land on the lunar surface.

NASA’s contract requires astronauts to conduct an unmanned lunar landing test flight before they are allowed to descend on the lunar surface in a lunar rover. An ongoing testing program will determine when this can be achieved.