This Sunday, SpaceX managed to recover the fifth test of Starship, the largest space rocket ever built, on the lower part of the ship, the propellant, on the first attempt.
The objective, which was achieved, was to be able to recover the spacecraft’s drive through a type of weapon in the launch tower, a milestone in space engineering.
Just before 7:30 local time (11:30 am in Lisbon), from the launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX launched Starship on its fifth test flight.
The massive spacecraft managed to put the main module into orbit with the help of 39 Raptor engines from its first stage, which managed to return from the stratosphere, perform a controlled deceleration and land on the same launch in a milestone without precedent in space engineering. pad to be retrieved by the “chopsticks”, the “weapons” that picked up this part of the ship to use again.
Thousands of vehicle and pad specific criteria had to be met before the Super Heavy booster was captured. Thanks to the hard work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded in our first attempt. pic.twitter.com/6wa5v6xHI0
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024
This fifth Starship test, which weighs around five thousand tons, successfully put the module into orbit and tested a system that uses the Starlink communication system to maintain communication with the orbital module during re-entry for the first time, which no spaceflight has. make it so far.
Starship aims to be the first private service to reach the Moon and Mars and establish a permanent presence and colonies on these planets, a vision repeated and considered by its founder, tycoon Elon Musk, to be viable.
The process by which the Starship propellant managed to land this Sunday for the first time is similar to the Falcon 9 rocket, also from SpaceX, a much smaller commercial orbital launch system, designed, in general, for missions in the orbit of Universe with success. rate more than 95%.
Recovery and reuse of rockets saves resources and time.
