The eyes of the world were on SpaceX on April 20.
On this day, the satellite and rocket company was doing something unprecedented: an orbital flight of Starship, the reusable rocket with which Musk promised to revisit the Moon and to conquer Mars.
The rocket exploded mid-flight. The explosion was a real shock for the aerospace industry and space conquest lovers, as the giant Starship rocket exploded in the air over Texas, a few minutes after lifting off. According to SpaceX, this was due to a "rapid unscheduled disassembly” before stage separation.
Starship
It was the first test flight, without passengers, of this vehicle developed by SpaceX.
The flight plan was as follows: approximately three minutes after takeoff, the booster was to break away and fall back into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Starship rocket would then turn on its six engines and continue its ascent alone, up to an altitude of more than 150 km or over 93 miles. After having made a little less than a full orbit around the Earth for about an hour, it would fall back into the Pacific Ocean. But nothing went as planned.
The black and silver behemoth had never flown in its full configuration before, with the super-powerful first stage, called Super Heavy, equipped with no less than 33 engines.
Only the second stage of the vehicle, the Starship spacecraft which by extension gives its name to the entire rocket, had carried out suborbital tests at an altitude of about six miles. It has been chosen by NASA to become, in a modified version, the lander of the Artemis III mission, which will bring astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century, officially in 2025.
At 120 meters, Starship is longer than both NASA's new mega-rocket, SLS (98 m), which first blasted off in November, and the legendary Saturn V rocket of the Apollo lunar program (111 m).
Just hours after the explosion, Musk said SpaceX would likely attempt another flight "in 1 to 2 months."
"3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount," the tech mogul said on April 21, just 24 hours after the explosion. "Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch."
"Looks like we can be ready to launch again in 1 to 2 months," he added without providing an exact date.
A Second Orbital Flight in August?
He has just given an update with new, more precise details. These new elements suggest that the next attempt could take place in August.
"Another step closer to Mars — the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket," SpaceX posted on Twitter on May 26, with behind-the-scenes and the April flight footage.
To what Musk said: "Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on pad, then flight 2 of Starship."
The news has unsurprisingly caused excitement among Twitter users.
"Let's go!" commented one Twitter user.
"That would be awesome!!" added another user.
"So exciting!" said another user.
The Starship explosion was not a complete failure for SpaceX, experts say. The fact that the rocket succeeded in taking off from its launch pad is already a huge achievement. The purpose of the flight, say these experts, was, above all, to collect as much data as possible to improve the prototypes and that is what happened, because the rocket was able to take off.
The orbital launch of Starship is viewed as a leap forward for humanity, as a stepping stone for reaching the Moon, then Mars, while carrying tons of cargo. Starship is designed to quickly replace the entire current range of SpaceX launchers and separate freight and manned transport systems. These are the Falcon Heavy and the Falcon 9, used for launching satellites, for resupplying the International Space Station, and for rotating crews.
