Washington (AFP) – SpaceX said Friday it will make another launch attempt next week of the massive Starship rocket — key to CEO Elon Musk’s long-term vision of colonizing Mars — after two consecutive in-flight explosions earlier this year. “The ninth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Tuesday, May 27,” the company said on its website, adding the launch window would open at 6:30 pm (2330 GMT) at its base in Texas.
Two previous test flights of the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ended in setbacks, with high-altitude explosions and showers of debris falling over the Caribbean. Both times, the upper stage of the rocket was lost. But the Super Heavy Booster was caught with the launch tower’s mechanical “chopstick” arms — an impressive feat of engineering. To date, Starship has completed eight integrated test flights atop the Super Heavy booster, with four successes and four failures ending in explosions.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered inquiries and grounded all SpaceX flights, but on Thursday authorized the resumption of the company’s flight activities, provided that modifications were made to the rocket. For this new flight, SpaceX will reuse one of the recovered Super Heavy boosters for the first time. However, the vehicle will not return to Starbase for a new catch. Instead, it will be used to conduct “several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data” before making a “hard splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America upon taking office.
Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall — about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty — Starship is designed to eventually be fully reusable. Musk’s company is betting on the launch of numerous Starship prototypes in order to quickly correct problems — a successful strategy, but one that has its critics. In 2023, several environmental groups sued the FAA, accusing them of failing to completely assess the environmental impact of these test flights. Despite the criticism, the FAA in early May authorized the increase of the number of annual Starship rocket launches from five to 25 at SpaceX’s Texas base.
© 2024 AFP
