The second test flight of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft ended in an explosion on Saturday morning. The explosion occurred a few minutes after launch from the spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship took off shortly after eight o’clock in the morning CET on the largest rocket in the world Super Heavy.
Shortly after the Super Heavy launch vehicle separated from the Starship, the rocket’s first stage exploded. But the ship she continued her flight a few more minutes. A minor explosion was seen live around the eighth minute and the presenters confirmed that they had lost contact with the ship soon after.
Unlike the first test, in which the ship exploded about 39 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, SpaceX this time succeeded reach beyond the limits of space. At the time of the explosion, the Starship’s tracking device recorded a live feed at an altitude of about 148 kilometers.
Today’s flight was also the first attempt by SpaceX o a new separation technique called hot staging, igniting the Starship’s engines before the ship separated from the still-burning first stage. She managed to finish it before the Super Heavy exploded, with the Starship already far away. SpaceX will now have to come up with ideas adjustments to your carrier modulewhich will help it withstand future attempts at this method of separation.
As in the case of the last test, which ended in an explosion, however, SpaceX still everything considered a success. Kate Tice, co-host of the live stream and quality engineering manager at SpaceX, said it was an “incredibly successful day, even though we witnessed RUDs (or rapid unplanned disassembly) of both the Super Heavy launch vehicle and the ship.” We got a lot of data that will help us improve next year”.
Source: engadget.com
