Live footage shows SpaceX’s Starship manned rocket prototype successfully landing at its base in Texas today. This was the fifth test of Starship, with the previous four ending in explosions.
The successful landing of Starship means a huge victory for Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX.
Musk tweeted, “Starship has landed as planned!”
But the 50-meter-high rocket’s landing wasn’t perfect, with a cluster of flames starting at the base after it hit the ground, but they were quickly extinguished.
Space Exploration Technologies webcaster John Insprucker explained that the rocket uses methane fuel, so a fire is not particularly unusual, and engineers are still working on design issues.
The rocket, numbered SN15, lifted off from its base in Boca Chica, South Texas, at about 5:25 p.m. Texas time, reaching an altitude of about 10 kilometers and completing a series of flight drills.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that it will use the Starship series as the lunar module in its future plans to return humans to the moon, so SpaceX is under pressure to succeed in today’s test.
NASA last month announced a $2.9 billion contract with space exploration technology companies, currently temporarily suspended because two companies not selected to protest NASA’s decision, respectively, entrepreneurs Bezos (Jeff Bezos) Blue Origin (Blue Origin), and applied science and information technology companies Dynetics.
Recent Comments