2023-04-17 12:13:24
“It probably won’t be successful. It’s a very difficult thing.” Elon Musk was not very optimistic just a few hours ago on Twitter when writing about one of his most ambitious projects. This Monday, if things go better than expected by the tycoon, his company SpaceX will carry out the first flight test of its powerful reusable transport system to travel to space, Starship, which includes a ship of the same name and the Super Heavy megarocket. , the largest in history. This system will foreseeably be the one that returns humanity to the Moon and, later, takes it to Mars and other planetary objectives.
The 120-meter-tall two-stage space rocket, taller than the Statue of Liberty, is scheduled to lift off from the SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica, Texas (USA), at 3:20 p.m. Spanish peninsular time. [Puedes seguir el intento de lanzamiento en directo aquí mismo (arriba) o si lo prefieres en la web de SpaceX].
On Sunday morning, the California-based company announced on Twitter that its launch teams were making progress with flight preparations, while keeping a close eye on possible wind conditions that could force a delay.
But on Sunday night, Musk didn’t seem to have everything going for him, because of the enormous challenges that the test flight presents. “Success is not what should be expected,” he confessed to a private Twitter audience, explaining that at best the attempt would provide crucial data on how the vehicle ascends into space and how it will fly back to Earth. “It is more likely” that the flight will be postponed to launch on Monday, he added. SpaceX has backup launch windows on Tuesday and Wednesday during roughly the same hours.
like a meteor
Both the Super Heavy rocket and the Starship it will take into space are designed as reusable components, capable of flying back to Earth for soft landings, a maneuver that has become routine for SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 rocket.
But no stage will be recovered in the first test flight, which is expected to last no more than 90 minutes.
Starship prototypes have made five subspace flights of up to 10 km above Earth in recent years, but the Super Heavy booster has never left the ground.
In February, SpaceX did a booster firing test, firing 31 of its 33 Raptor engines for about 10 seconds with the rocket bolted upright on a pad.
Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration granted a license for what would be the rocket system’s first test flight, removing a final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch.
If all goes to plan this Monday, all 33 Raptor engines will ignite simultaneously to lift the Starship on a flight that nearly completes one orbit of Earth before it re-enters the atmosphere and freefalls into the Pacific at a supersonic speed about 97 km from the northern Hawaiian Islands.
After separating from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute the beginnings of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship’s resplendent reentry over the Pacific will test its ability to self-steer aerodynamically using large ailerons and its thermal shielding to withstand the intense drag generated as it plummets through the atmosphere. “The ship will come like a meteor,” Musk described. “This is the first step of a long journey that will require many flights.”
As designed, the Starship rocket is almost twice as powerful as NASA’s own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its first uncrewed flight in November, sending a NASA spacecraft called Orion on a voyage of 10 days around the Moon.
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