Washington:
SpaceX chief Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter Tuesday that the most current prototype of the company’s Starship rocket series had crashed, just after the video feed of its test flight reduce out.
“At least the crater is in the right place!” he joked, in acknowledging the fourth failed test of the prototype.
“Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today,” he added.
The rocket, SN11, launched from the company’s south Texas facility about 1300 GMT and started its ascent to 10 kilometers (six miles), experiencing some video glitches.
Looks like engine 2 had troubles on ascent & did not attain operating chamber stress in the course of landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t required.
Something important occurred shortly just after landing burn commence. Should know what it was when we can examine the bits later today.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2021
It was descending to the surface when the feed was lost when once again.
“We lost the clock at T plus five minutes, 49 seconds,” stated announcer John Insprucker, which means the quantity of time that had passed just after lift-off.
“Looks like we’ve had another exciting test of Starship Number 11,” he added, dryly.
SN11 is the 11th prototype of Starship, which SpaceX hopes will one day be capable to fly crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
It was the fourth to conduct a test flight attempting to return to the ground for a soft vertical landing.
SN8 and SN9, which launched in December and February respectively, crash landed and exploded, whilst SN10 effectively landed then blew up a couple of minutes later in the course of its test on March 3.
Despite the earlier failures, analysts say SpaceX is gathering important information that will assist it to accelerate its improvement timeline.
Eventually, SpaceX plans to combine the Starship spaceship with a Super Heavy rocket, producing a totally reusable program.
This final version will stand 394 feet (120 meters) tall and will be capable to carry one hundred metric tonnes into Earth orbit — the most highly effective launch car ever created.
()