SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy made the first successful test launch. The giant vehicle was able to fly to an altitude of 39 kilometers, providing a lot of useful data for the company to further develop a super-powerful rocket.
SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy have made a successful launch
On April 20, SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy made its first test flight. The two-stage starship took off to an altitude of 39 km; this attempt was crowned with success and quite impressive. The company feared that the vehicle might not even take off from the launch pad, which would be unfortunate. However, Starship and Super Heavy made a great flight, pointing out to the SpaceX team what was done right.
Starship failed to separate from Super Heavy
The vehicle with a speed of over 1800 km/h climbed over the Gulf of Mexico for about four minutes. However, shortly before the separation of the two stages of the rocket, unforeseen problems arose. The Starship with the Super Heavy began to roll over and showed signs of uncontrolled flight. Soon after, the entire rocket system exploded spectacularly.
Although the vehicle’s stages did not separate as planned, the entire test provided a wealth of information about what was done right and what SpaceX still needs to work on. It was a test flight, so getting this gigantic rocket up to an altitude of 39 km is a great success in itself. There is definitely still a long way to go, and every piece of information gained from testing is an important part of creating a super-powerful rocket that can return man to the Moon and begin to take over Mars.
SpaceX remains optimistic
After the test flight was cut short by unplanned problems, SpaceX remained optimistic. The company was happy it received a huge amount of data and will now be able to study it and apply it in the next launch. In a thread on Twitter, the company wrote:
« As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.
Teams will continue to review data and work towards our next flight test.
With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary.
Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first integrated flight test of Starship! »
What exactly went wrong is not yet known or announced. This will definitely happen in the coming days. However, it will take some time before the next launch attempt. According to Elon Musk, the next test flight will take place in a few months, although he did not give any more specific details.
