SpaceX carried out this Tuesday the sixth test flight of its Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket, two of the most revolutionary components of its aerospace arsenaland as always we have been able to follow it from Spain through a live broadcast.
After demonstrating the incredible ability of the ‘rocket catcher’ Mechazilla in last month’s spectacular maneuvera key advance towards the complete reuse of these technological giants, SpaceX has had to cancel the maneuver on this occasion and Super Heavy has landed gently in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company has not yet given a specific reason for aborting the capture of the rocket from the launch pad, but during the broadcast they said that many factors had to work correctly to continue with the attempt. “We do not meet a commitment criterion,” is the only thing that SpaceX has clarified.
Some experts—as well as disappointed X users—have pointed out that the decision to take Super Heavy to the Gulf of Mexico could be a political issue: President-elect Donald Trump was at Starbasein a sign of his close ties with the company’s billionaire founder and CEO, Elon Musk.
Some point out that SpaceX may have opted for a splashdown of the rocket for “excess caution”.
Trump himself confirmed his attendance in Xwishing Musk “and the Great Patriots who participate in this incredible project” good luck, to which the tycoon responded by saying that his presence is “an honor.”
A controlled Starship flight
After the failed capture attempt at the launch tower, The Starship has continued its course in ‘cruise mode’ for about 40 minutes while flying around the Earth.
After orbiting our planet, Starship has completed a controlled atmospheric reentrycarried out a turning maneuver and landed precisely in the Indian Ocean, complying with this mission objective. The capsule has arrived intact despite having lost part of the protective material that covered it during descent.
In the ocean, the spaceship was on fire while bobbing on the surface. Nevertheless, SpaceX had already said that it did not expect to recover it. Let us remember that in the previous test Starship exploded after splashdown.
SpaceX has tested new features on this Starship flight
As a novelty, Elon Musk’s company has managed to restart one of its six Raptor engines during this cruising phasein full space flight, an essential step for future deorbitation burns.
Another of the new tests that have been carried out on this flight has been remove thousands of heat shield plates in strategic locations to evaluate its resistance. The objective was to check where plates can be removed to install hardware that serves to capture the ship, which in the future they also want to recover.
This is how SpaceX explained it in its previous statement: “Entire sections of heat shield plates on both sides of the ship will be removed in places that are being studied for the hardware that allows capture in future vehicles”.
Besides, SpaceX has carried out this test at a time outside the usual: “Adjusting the flight’s takeoff window to the afternoon at Starbase will allow the ship to re-enter the Indian Ocean in daylight, which will provide better conditions for visual observations,” they detail.
Finally, the ship has intentionally flown at a higher angle of attack in the final phase of descent“deliberately stretching the limits of control of the flaps to obtain data on future landing profiles,” the company explained.
Starship, Musk’s dream
This ship is a centerpiece in Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing other planets, like marsand return to the Moon sustainably. Each test adds data and experience to reach those objectives.
In fact, the Starship wants to become the first private service to reach the Moon and Mars and establish permanent presences and colonies on those planets, a vision considered viable by Musk.
Starship is designed as a fully reusable space transportation systemdesigned to revolutionize space travel and allow interplanetary exploration. It consists of two parts: a booster rocket called Super Heavy and the spacecraft itself, known as Starship. Together, They reach the impressive size of 120 meters high.
It can carry up to 150 tons of payload in low Earth orbit (LEO) in its reusable version and more in a disposable version.
The engines of a rocket are essentially its heart and in the case of Starship they are the Raptor. It is SpaceX’s own development and uses liquid methane (CH4) as fuel and oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer.
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