Spacex, Elon Musk’s company, launched the 11th Starship rocket Monday in Texas and made it land in the Indian Ocean, this being the last flight before the company starts the tests with a new version of the huge rocket, equipped with multiple functions for the Moon and Mars.
The Starship rocket has successfully performed the 11th EPAFE photo flight
Starship, which includes the upper starship step mounted above the Super Heavy propeller, took off at 18:23 CT (23:23 GMT) from the Starbase of Spacex base. After sending the Starship step into space, Super Heavy returned for a controlled landmark 7 minutes after launch, testing a landing configuration before self -testing, writes Reuters.
The previous mission, which took place in August, had ended a series of failures at the tests from the beginning of this year. The flight of Monday was similar to the previous one, sending a batch of Starink fictive satellites again, reapplying for spaces in space and testing new plates of thermal shield during extremely hot reintegration, before the west of Australia.
NASA’s interim administrator, Sean Duffy, wrote on X that the mission represented “A new major step to take Americans to the South Pole of the Moon.”
Special Prototype for the Moon and Mars
Spacex announced on Monday that, in next tests, it is expected to launch a more advanced starship prototype, adapted with essential improvements for long -term missions.
These include docking adapters and other hardware changes essential for orbital refueling, a complex process in which two Starship vehicles are coupled to orbit to transfer hundreds of tons of cryogenic fuel.
The improved prototype “It is truly the vehicle that could take people on the Moon and Mars”declared last month at a Paris Conference President Spacex, Gwynne Shotwell. “So that is, in fact, the one we want to reach.”
Shotwell said that that version of Starship is expected to fly by the end of the year or early next year. Musk, the Spacex CEO, said it is expected that a two-starship refueling mission will take place next year, an objective that NASA had provided for this year.
Reflection is one of the many testing objectives left before the rocket transports people on the monthly surface, an event scheduled for 2027. Several Starship tanks are needed to fill a starship vehicle with sufficient aselenization, according to the Spacex proposed plan.
Contract of over $ 3 billion
This is part of a contract of over $ 3 billion won by Spacex in 2021, within the NASA Artemis program, the US effort to send people per month for the first time in 1972. The Spacex contract is placed at the center of a month between the US and China, which aims at its own crew in 2030.
A group of NASA’s safety counselors warned last month that modest progress in the development of project elements for the monthly vehicle risks delaying the American program. Performing a test of test on the rough surface of the month is another major priority that Spacex has to reach.
Starship, the most powerful rocket ever launched and often larger than Falcon 9, called “The Horse of the burden” Al Spacex, is also crucial for launching Starlink satellites, essential for the profitable goals of the company. It is also the central piece of Musk’s vision of sending people and loads to Mars.
