The “failure” of the Starship: How much did the test cost that ended with the most powerful rocket in the world exploding

Four minutes after it took off from its launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, the starship rocket of the company SpaceXowned by the renowned billionaire Elon MuskIt turned into a huge ball of fire.

LOOK: SpaceX: Why did Elon Musk’s Starship super rocket explode in mid-air?

Thus concluded this Thursday the 20th the first test flight of the largest and most powerful rocket ever created in the world.

The explosion occurred because the rocket propellant failed to separate from the rest of the ship, so it began to spin and became a “unscheduled rapid disintegration”, said SpaceX.

Now, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States will be in charge of conducting the routine investigation to determine the exact causes of the explosion.

Although in the eyes of the majority this represented a failed test of the ship that NASA chose for man to step on the Moon again in 2025Musk congratulated the team in charge just minutes after the incident.

congratulations @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship!

Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months. pic.twitter.com/gswdFut1dK

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2023

“Congratulations to the SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of the Starship! I learned a lot for the next test release in a few months”, wrote the billionaire on his Twitter account.

During the launch broadcast the SpaceX team can be heard cheering and clapping throughouteven when the rocket turns into a huge ball of fire.

MILLIONS MADE ASHES

This megarocket, which Musk has been dreaming of since 2012 and which has been advertised as the space vehicle of the futurebesides being a version “economic” in this area, is divided into three main parts.

starshipwith a height of 50 meters and a diameter of 9 meters, is a reusable spacecraft that is designed to carry people or up to 150 tons of cargo towards Earth orbit, the Moon and Marsa distance that it hopes to achieve thanks to the six engines and the 1,200 tons of fuel it has.

When the rocket successfully separates, it will be the spaceship Starship’s turn to begin its own journey. (SPACEX / AFP /)

Beneath the Starship comes the propellant, which could be understood as the body of the rocket, which is made up of the Super Heavy parts and the 33 Raptor engines powered by 3,400 tons of fuel.

Like the spaceship, SpaceX plans to make the propellant reusableso in this case it is expected that the body of the rocket can land at the launch site once it has detached from the ship.

On the whole, the rocket has a total height of 120 meters; that is, reaching the top is equivalent to being in a 40-story building.

The main parts of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. (SPACEX / THE COMMERCE /)

By comparison, the Saturn V, used in the Apollo program and with which man reached the Moon, was 111 meters tall. While the SLS Block 1, the most recent megarocket tested by NASA, barely reaches 98 meters in height.

Musk himself estimated in 2019 that the program Starship has an estimated cost of 3 billion dollars.

However, a year earlier he had admitted that the final figure could be around 10 billion dollars.

SpaceX’s Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket in history. (BBC News World /)

Finding the final price will need to see how many more launch tests will have to be done before Starship works the way SpaceX wants it to. Let’s take into account that each launch adds about 10 million dollars to the account.

Subsequently, the spacecraft will have to perform a test orbital tour, which will add another million dollars by attempt.

Again, and although the figures are astronomical, we must put this in perspective. The Apollo program, for example, which ran from 1960 to 1973, cost the United States government a total of $25.8 billion, a figure that Adjusted to current exchange rates, it would be 257 billion dollars.according to The Planetary Society.

In recent times, meanwhile, the Mars 2020 mission that sent the robot Perseverance to the Red Planet had a total cost of 2.7 billion dollarsbetween the launch of the rocket and the handling of the robot on Martian soil, according to NASA.

Source: Elcomercio