SpaceX
Earlier today, SpaceX moved one step closer to developing a vehicle that can legitimately send people to Mars when Starship Serial No. 10 (SN10) successfully conducted a soft landing at the company's launch facility in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. This flight—which lasted around 6 minutes, 20 seconds and reached an altitude of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)—marked the first time in three tries that Starship was able to remain intact upon touch down at the landing zone only several meters from its Pad A launch pedestal. However, the euphoric feeling didn't last long as SN10 ended up exploding a few minutes later...likely due to a methane leak triggered by a failure in some of its landing legs, and a large flame bellowing out from underneath Starship that the pad's fire suppression system was obviously unable to quell.
Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test → https://t.co/Hs5C53qBxb https://t.co/Au6GmiyWN8
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 3, 2021
Despite SN10 now being a pile of scrap metal just like its two predecessors SN8 and SN9, this test was historic in that Elon Musk's company has finally figured out a way for Starship to slowly descend back to Earth and land carefully. All three Raptor engines are needed for the landing burn and not just two. Next up is SN11...which should see flight as soon as SN10's remains are removed from the landing zone and the prerequisite static fires are conducted on the 11th Starship prototype. Things are really starting to pick up for SpaceX and its long-term goal of transporting people to future colonies on Mars! Happy Hump Day.
SpaceX
SpaceX
Screenshot courtesy of SPadre - YouTube.com
No comments:
Post a Comment