Starship: after the explosion, the second test flight of a huge SpaceX rocket

Will it explode or not? SpaceX is scheduled to once again launch the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, this Saturday after its first launch ended in a giant explosion in the spring. This second test flight by billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX will be closely scrutinized by NASA, which is counting on the craft for its return missions to the Moon.

The giant 120-meter-tall rocket is scheduled to lift off at 7 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) on Saturday, with a 20-minute launch window from SpaceX’s base in Boca Chica, in far south Texas. In the United States.

On April 20, Starship took off fully loaded for the first time. But several engines failed to fire, and SpaceX deliberately blew up the rocket after four minutes. As a result of the takeoff, a cloud of dust rose several kilometers from the launch pad, which itself was seriously damaged. The power of the engines sent chunks of concrete flying and caused a fire to break out in a nearby regional park. The US air regulator (FAA) launched an investigation before finally greenlighting the second flight on Wednesday.

“Significant environmental damage”

Within seven months, the launch pad was rebuilt and the water “deluge” system was installed and tested. These showers of water, released when engines start, are supposed to dampen acoustic waves, limiting vibrations.

However, the associations are separately suing the FAA, which is accused of misjudging the environmental impact of the new rocket. “We are concerned that this second launch will again cause significant environmental damage,” said Jared Margolis, a lawyer for the NGO Center for Biological Diversity.

The rocket consists of two stages: a super-heavy propulsion stage with 33 engines and the Starship spacecraft located above it, which gives the name to the entire rocket. During the first test, the two stages failed to separate in flight.

Same flight plan as in April.

So the separation system was changed, Elon Musk said during a conference in early October, adding that testing the system would be the “riskiest part” of the second flight. “I don’t want to get my hopes up too high,” the SpaceX CEO warned.

The flight plan is the same as in April: the ship should try to make “almost a full circle around the Earth” and land in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Hawaii, the billionaire described. Technically, it will not reach Earth’s orbit, but will be “just below.”

For the company, blowing up prototypes is less of an image problem than for NASA and its government funds, experts say. Combining tests using a fast iterative process allows for faster machine development.

The increasingly unrealistic date of 2025

But development of Starship does not appear to be moving fast enough to meet the plans of the US space agency, which has signed a contract with SpaceX. A modified version of the device will serve as a lunar lander to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

That mission, called Artemis 3, is officially scheduled for 2025, a date that seems increasingly unrealistic. Beyond the Moon, Elon Musk wants to make Starship a “widespread means of transportation to anywhere in the solar system,” including Mars.

His goal is to create an autonomous colony on the Red Planet to make humanity a multi-planetary species. If Starship’s size is “absurd,” he explains, it’s because building “a permanent base on the Moon and a city on Mars” requires carrying millions of tons of payload.

But Starship’s real innovation is that it should be completely reusable, with two stages designed to eventually return to the launch pad, keeping costs down. Currently, only the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has been recovered.

Starship is larger than NASA’s new mega-rocket SLS (98 m), which first flew a year ago, and the legendary Saturn V, the rocket of the Apollo lunar program (111 m). Starship’s launch thrust is also about twice as powerful as those two launchers.