SpaceX launched this Saturday from Texas the second test of the Starship – the largest and most powerful ship in the world to reach space – with a successful takeoff and separation of the propellant and the capsule, which was not achieved in the first attempt last April. but ended again in an explosion minutes later.
The takeoff of the Starship on its enormous Super Heavy booster, with 33 Raptor engines, took place in Boca Chica (Texas) around 7:03 a.m. (13:03 GMT).
Less than three minutes after takeoff, both stages separated successfully and thanks to a water irrigation system adopted after the failure in April.
The monumental Starship rocket, designed to reach the Moon and Mars in the future, and which NASA is counting on for its Artemis program to return to the Moon, was scheduled to make an almost complete revolution around the Earth, within a period of one hour and a half, before falling into the Pacific, near Hawaii.
SpaceX had anticipated that today’s challenge was the separation of both stages and clarified that an eventual new failure in the launch would contribute to gathering more information to make new adjustments.
Elon Musk’s company successfully began this critical test this Saturday after about seven months after the explosion in the air of the first test about four minutes after takeoff, which forced the company to cause its explosion.
However, although it made progress in the process, it still ended with an explosion over the Gulf of Mexico when it was about 145 kilometers (90 miles) from Earth.
The Starship, with a height of 121 meters, hoped to reach near-orbital speeds on this lap, to be much closer to fully realizing its potential. The goal of the mission was to reach a close orbit. According to SpaceX, Starship will be a reusable transportation system designed to transport crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Among Starship’s customers is NASA, which has tapped SpaceX for the Human Landing Services (HLS) contract for Artemis 3, a mission that will take astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the 1970s.
NASA plans the launch of Artemis 3 for the end of 2025.
