Short-lived flight of SpaceX’s Starship

The SpaceX company’s Starship space transportation system, one of the first designed with the ability to carry out manned interplanetary flights and which, in theory, could take up to one hundred people to Mars in a single trip, carried out a test flight on 20 April 2023.

The Starship system consists of the Super Heavy launcher and the Starship spaceship. Both are reusable, that is, they can carry out more than one journey. In some cases, they can be single-use if the occasion requires it. During launch, both vehicles act as one, with the Super Heavy as the first stage and the Starship as the second.

The system can send between 100 and 150 tons into space if it works in reusable mode or 250 if it works in single-use mode. This ranks him as the most powerful pitcher ever. With the two phases, the system measures about 120 meters in height and 9 in diameter.

The Starship (the second phase of the system) is 50 meters high (or long, depending on how you look at it) and 9 meters in diameter. Its payload capacity is between 100 and 150 tons. It is designed to carry humans and cargo. It is prepared for missions in Earth orbit, to the Moon (where it could carry large amounts of equipment), to Mars (where it could carry astronauts), and in theory beyond. It is also capable of making journeys from one point to another on Earth, taking an hour or less to travel anywhere in the world, which makes it the fastest means of transportation on Earth.

The Super Heavy launcher (the first phase of the system) measures 69 meters in height and 9 in diameter. It is powered by 33 engines of a type known as Raptor, which use liquid methane and oxygen for propulsion. The Starship also has engines of this type, with some of them specially designed for use in the vacuum of space. After completing its job accelerating and lifting the Starship, the Super Heavy separates from it and descends in a controlled manner to land at the launch site.

An important feature of the system is that the Starship can be refueled when it is in low orbit around Earth. Thanks to this, the ship can transport 100 tons to Mars.

On April 20, 2023, a test flight of the complete system was carried out, with the Super Heavy rocket as the first stage and the Starship as the second.

A moment of the flight of the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy launcher on April 20, 2023. (Photo: SpaceX)

The flight started out apparently fine, but some engines went out. However, the worst problems came later.

Two and a half minutes into the flight, when the complete rocket (the 2 phases together) was at about 31 kilometers of altitude and its speed was about 2160 kilometers per hour, it became evident that something was very wrong, since it began to spin erratically. Thereafter, the speed tended to decrease. The rocket still ascended a little more, up to 39 kilometers of altitude, to then go down and recover speed. The two phases remained unduly united, instead of separating.

At the end of the 4-minute flight, and it being already evident that the situation would get worse, the end of the mission was caused, with an explosion that prevented the uncontrolled flight from ending up leading that large mass to crash on an inhabited area. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 29 kilometers, with the rocket moving at about 2,130 kilometers per hour.

This flight can be seen as a failure or simply as a test flight from which to learn what was wrong and how to correct it. Now, intense work awaits the engineers.

The SpaceX company was created in 2002 by Elon Musk, known for his visionary entrepreneurial drive in innovative technology areas, including the electric car industry with Tesla Motors, solar power, and others. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)