Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted the sixth test launch of its Starship system in South Texas in the presence of US President-elect Donald Trump.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted the sixth test launch of its Starship system in South Texas in the presence of US President-elect Donald Trump.
This time, however, things didn’t go perfectly: the system failed to land the booster rocket back like it had last time, and the Super Heavy landed in the Gulf of Mexico.
«The first attempt was pretty epic, but the safety of the teams, the public and the venue itself is paramount. So we make compromises», — SpaceX engineer Kate Tice said during the live broadcast.
As Bloomberg writes, SpaceX’s launch system, consisting of a launch vehicle and Starship spacecraft, broke free from the tower, but a few minutes into the flight, SpaceX abandoned plans to catch the launch vehicle with giant mechanical arms — so-called «chopsticks» that the company finally managed to accomplish during its previous flight.
After the Super Heavy landed in the Gulf of Mexico, the Starship continued its journey through space.
SpaceX’s ambitions are to use the booster rocket multiple times, because this will make space flights much cheaper and eventually replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets that are currently the mainstays of the American space industry.
The publication also reports that Trump, along with Musk, arrived at the launch site about an hour before the launch: he attended the event alongside political allies, including Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr. It was Trump’s first visit to a Starship launch.
SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell said Friday that up to 400 Starship flights are possible over the next four years. But that frequency is possible only if SpaceX perfects its landing strategy.
As we wrote, Elon Musk is to head the new department of efficiency of the US government, and this institution is designed to reduce the country’s public spending by $2 trillion.
