Sensation at SpaceX
Musk’s Starship gently caught by metal arms
The US aerospace company SpaceX has successfully landed its Starship launch stage "Super Heavy" back on the launch pad for the first time. Gigantic metal arms caught the rocket system in the south of Texas.
The unmanned "Starship" lifted off on Sunday from the spaceport of tech billionaire Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX in the US state of Texas, as live images showed. A test flight lasting around one hour was planned. For the first time, an attempt was made to land the lower rocket stage directly on the launch tower - which was successful.
Both major goals of the test flight were thus achieved, Musk wrote on the online platform X, which he also owns. "Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting fifth test flight of Starship," he wrote on SpaceX's official X profile.
Success on the fifth attempt
During the first test in April 2023, the entire rocket system exploded after just a few minutes. During a second test in November 2023, the two rocket stages separated and the upper stage continued its flight, but shortly afterwards both exploded separately. During a third test in March, the "Starship" reached space for the first time, but was also unable to complete the flight as hoped. During a fourth test flight in June, the Starship made its first controlled landing, which, however, did not go quite as hoped. SpaceX always emphasizes that the aim of the tests is to collect data.
The "Starship" - consisting of the approximately 70-metre-long "Super Heavy" booster and the approximately 50-metre-long upper stage, also called "Starship" - is intended to enable manned missions to the moon and Mars. The system is designed in such a way that the spaceship and rocket can be reused after returning to Earth.
The system, which is around 120 meters long, should be able to transport well over 100 tons of cargo in the future. NASA wants to use the "Starship" to take astronauts to the moon. SpaceX hopes to take the system to Mars one day.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,
die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.