How is the new SpaceX rocket which will be launched this Monday and which is the most powerful in the world

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private space company is about to reach a milestone: the first launch of the most powerful rocket that has ever flown: Spatialship.

The orbital speed launch of its combined upper stage Super Heavy Booster and Starship also called the Starship Deep Space Rocket System is set to launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, Monday, April 17 during a 150-minute window that opens at 12:00 GMT (9 Argentine time).

The gigantic 120-meter double-decker Starship it consists of a large first-stage booster, called Super Heavy, and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship. The test flight will notably use the Ship 24 and Booster 7 prototypes. Starship and its test flights are among the most exciting developments in the space industry, and the first orbital mission is long overdue.

“We can go to other places in the solar system, like Saturn, but I think the most important thing to focus on is the fastest path to a self-sufficient city on Mars.“, were the words spoken by the billionaire businessman Elon Musk during the presentation two years ago of his new Starship rocket, with which he intends to generate a space revolution like that made by the legendary Apollo who took man to the Moon.

It was September 28, 2019, but his words are becoming more and more relevant. Starship, which then was a dream today it has already carried out several successful low-altitude flights and now intends to cross the barrier of space.

With him be able to carry up to 100 tons in low orbit around the Earth, fans say Musk is poised to transform the economics of launch activity. “Game over for existing startups. There is no vehicle on the drawing board that can compete,” said Peter Diamandis, an American space contractor. When Starship launches, the whole flight will take about 90 minutes, from Starbaseflying east over the Gulf of Mexico and through the Florida Strait, ending near Hawaii.

Super Heavy and Starship are both designed to be fully reusable, but this will be the only flight for Booster 7 and Ship 24; Both vehicles will dive into the ocean instead of making vertical, powered landings on land or in a “remote boat” as the first stages of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets typically do.

The new rocket will provide 15 million pounds of launch thrust, about double that of Apollo-era rockets. Above this launcher is the Starship, powered by six other Raptor engines and equipped with a large cargo hold to accommodate satellites, food, oxygen, compartments for up to 100 crew members and even additional fuel tanks for in-space refueling, which is essential for long-duration interplanetary spaceflight.

Until now, the tallest rocket in history was the Saturn V from the Apollo missions, at 110.6 meters. “Due to its size and ability to carry scientific instruments even into deep space, Starship will enable a whole new class of science missions.“commented Musk on his Twitter account. Starship is the craft SpaceX intends to use to take humans beyond Earth to destinations like the moon, Mars and beyond.

The spacecraft is designed to operate both in the vacuum of space and in the atmospheres of Earth and Mars., using small moving wings to glide to the desired landing area. Once over the landing zone, the craft flips into an upright position and uses its onboard Raptor engines to perform a powered descent and landing, giving it enough thrust to lift itself off the surface of Mars or the Earth. Moon, overcoming the weaker gravity of these worlds. and return to Earth, again making a soft landing.

The Starship and Super Heavy are fully reusable, and the entire system is designed to deliver over 100 tons of payload to the surface of the Moon or Mars. in order to start building space colonies.

SpaceX’s plan is for Booster 7’s 33 Raptor liquid methane liquid oxygen engines to shut down 169 seconds after flight and separate from the ship 24 three seconds later, according to SpaceX’s mission description. Booster 7 will restart some of its selected engines to bring it back to Texas, eventually sinking about 20 miles off the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after launch.

During, Starship’s six upper stage Raptor engines they will light up after 177 seconds, or just under three minutes of flight, continuing the vehicle’s journey eastward. These motors will run for approximately 6.5 minutes and stop after 560 seconds of flight. Spacecraft 24 won’t complete a full Earth orbit, but it will reach what’s called orbital velocity, for low Earth orbit, about 17,500 mph, at an altitude of about 150 miles, if all goes well. goes as planned.

The vessel will then undergo a high-speed test re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes well, it will run aground about 100 km off the northwest coast of Kauai, which is part of the Hawaiian archipelago. This splashdown is scheduled 90 minutes after takeoff from Boca Chica. The test flight is intended to provide a lot of valuable information to SpaceX as it seeks to get Starship fully operational.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the long-awaited license on Friday. The FAA said SpaceX had met all requirements, including those related to safety and the environment. The license is valid for five years. “We carefully analyze public safety risks at every stage of the mission and ask SpaceX to mitigate those risks,” the FAA added. There will be no people or satellites aboard the 120-meter rocket.

SpaceX has set up a factory to produce full-scale copies of Starship. “I think we’re going to need 1,000 ships or something to go multiplanetary.” Musk said. In this regard, he considered the creation of a Starship mass production line to be essential to long-term goals, saying that the “biggest limitation” of current production is the speed of building Starship Raptor engines.

“SpaceX’s overall goal has been to advance space technology so that humanity can become a multiplanetary species and, ultimately, a space civilization.”Elon Musk explained.

The American aerospace manufacturing company has a $2.9 billion contract with NASA to send astronauts to the Moon, while dreaming of reaching Mars with that same rocket.

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