Spacecraft crash. A giant musk rocket exploded above the ground

This rocket is a kind of pass to orbit the moon and other planets of the solar system. All because he will be able to carry really heavy loads into orbit – Elon Musk announced that the Starship will carry and carry up to 100 tons of cargo, and there will also be room for 100 people. This is a very big trip to the moon, or a team to build the first planetary base on Mars.

The two-stage rocket had truly gigantic dimensions – a total height of 120 meters and a diameter of 9 meters. Its first stage, the Super Heavy, was equipped with 33 powerful Raptor liquid methane rocket engines. I loaded Super Heavy 3.6k. Tons of fuel needed to defy Earth’s gravity while flying such a large object into orbit. During this test flight, the first module was planned to separate from the second after reaching orbit and land in the Gulf of Mexico, and the second module was to orbit the Earth at an altitude of more than 200 km and land near Hawaii.

On February 9 this year, 31 of the 33 engines were tested on the ground, and the test was successful. This was the 35th system test since 2019. Several failed, but recent static tests ran smoothly. However, launching into orbit is not so simple. As a cautionary tale, Elon Musk recalls the example of a Soviet N1 missile roughly the size of a Starship, whose failed launch in 1969 ended in one of the largest man-made explosions.

Nobody wants a repeat of this scenario. Before starting, everything had to be shut down. However, during the first attempt on April 17, just before the 150-minute launch window began, one small component failed. The launch controller said “it looks like the pressure valve is frozen, so if it doesn’t work soon, the launch will be cancelled”. And so, unfortunately, it happened.

Three days later, the attempt was repeated, ending in disaster. Although SpaceX representatives assured the world that this is not a disaster at all, but another lesson on the way to building a reliable system that sooner or later will work anyway. SpaceX even tried to keep a sense of humor in the situation, posting a comment on Twitter: “As if the test flight alone wasn’t exciting enough, Starship experienced a quick unscheduled disassembly before the separation phase.”. The company announced that the next test flight of the repaired rocket would take place in a few months.

The spacecraft’s successful test flight will open a new chapter in the history of space conquest. As announced by Elon Musk, the Starship will be able to make long-distance interplanetary flights, launch satellites and other heavy equipment into orbit, and even act as a carrier that instantly transports cargo from one place on Earth to another. In the near future, the Starship system will become part of NASA’s Artemis project – manned flights to the Moon and the construction of the first lunar base there. In order for the people on the spacecraft to reach the moon, it would be necessary to create a special human landing system for the spacecraft landing.

In 2023, the Japanese billionaire Ysaku Maezawa was going to go on a trip around the moon, who bought this space trip for himself and six artists. In Billionaire’s Intent, this six-day trip aims to become an inspiration for painters, poets, and musicians to create new works of art on a cosmic scale. It looks like the billionaire and his entertainers will be waiting for their trip longer than planned.