SpaceX has problems with the upper stadium of starship After consecutive failuresBut engineers make remarkable progress with the huge rocket booster.
The most visible sign of Spacex Make progress with the first starship stage – called super heavy – came at 9:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. HAE; 2:40 UTC) on Thursday on the company's launch site in the South of Texas. With an undoubted explosion in orange exhaust, SpaceX fired a super heavy booster which has already not at the edge of the space. The burn lasted about eight seconds.
It was the first time that SpaceX has been testing a “proven” super heavy booster, and he opened the way for this particular rocket – Booster designated 14 – to fly again soon. Confirmed spacex a reflux to booster 14, which previously Launched and returned to earth in Januarywill occur during the next launch of Starship with the Thursday static fire test, Booster 14 seems to be closer to the preparation of flights than any of the boosters of the SpaceX factory, which is a short distance from the launch site.
SpaceX said that 29 of the 33 raptor engines supplied with the Booster methane are proven by flights. “The first super heavy reuse will be a step towards our goal of zero-touch reflux,” wrote SpaceX on X.
A successful reflux of the Super Heavy booster would be an important step for the Starship program, while engineers have trouble problems on the upper rocket stadium, simply known as the ship.
What difference
Super -heavy engines are able to produce nearly 17 million pounds of push, double the power of the NASA Saturn V rocket which sent astronauts to the moon. Super Heavy may be the most complex rocket booster ever built. It is certainly the biggest. To get an idea of the size of this booster, imagine the fuselage of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet standing.
SpaceX has now launched eight large -scale test flights from Starship, with a super heavy booster and a higher scene of stars piloted to form a rocket that exceeds 404 feet (123.1 meters) in height. The rocket's recall part has performed well so far, with seven consecutive successful launches since a failure of the first starship flight.
More recently, SpaceX has recovered three super heavy super-boosters in four attempts. SpaceX has a richness of experience with the recovery and reuse of Falcon Boosters 9. The total number of Falcon rocket landings is now 426.
SpaceX reused a Booster Falcon 9 for the first time in March 2017. It was an operational flight with a communication satellite on a mission worth several hundred million dollars.
Before the Milestone Falcon 9 Reflight eight years ago, SpaceX spent almost a year renovating and releasing the rocket after its return from its first mission. The rocket has accumulated more mileage on the ground than in flight, first returning to its launch base in Florida on a Drone Spacex ship, then moving by truck at the seat of Spacex in Hawthorne, California, for in -depth inspections and a renovation.
Once the engineers finished this work, they transported the booster to the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, for test tests, then finally returned the rocket in Florida for the final launch preparations.
There will not be such a trip for the super heavy booster. First of all, it is much more difficult to transport than the short and leaner Falcon 9. The design of Super Heavy also presents improvements informed by the lessons learned in the Falcon 9 program. This helped SpaceX to obtain the super heavy at the dawn of a refhler in less than three months.
