For SpaceX's next Starship test flight, surviving hypersonic return is
key
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[June 06, 2024]
By Joey Roulette
(Reuters) - SpaceX's giant Starship rocket is scheduled for a fourth
test flight to space on Thursday with a tricky primary objective:
survive a blazingly hot re-entry through Earth's atmosphere, the violent
phase where the rocket broke apart during its last attempt.
Starship, a two-stage rocket standing nearly 400 feet (122 meters) tall,
is poised to launch from SpaceX's rocket facilities in south Texas as
early as 7 a.m. local time (1200 GMT) for the latest trial mission in
the test-to-failure rocket development campaign of Elon Musk's company.
Designed to be cheaper and more powerful than SpaceX's workhorse Falcon
9 rocket, Starship represents the future of the company's dominant
satellite launch and astronaut business. It is due to be used by NASA in
the next few years to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972.
Each Starship rocket has made it farther in its testing objectives than
previous tests before failing, either by blowing up or disintegrating in
the atmosphere.
The rocket's first launch in April 2023 exploded minutes after liftoff
some 25 miles (40 km) above ground. During the next attempt in November,
Starship reached space for the first time but exploded soon after.
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In its most recent flight in March, Starship made it much farther and
broke apart in Earth's atmosphere as it attempted to return from space
halfway around the globe.
The rocket's flight on Thursday will be a repeat of its previous test
but with the aim to get farther. The rocket system's first stage, called
Super Heavy, is set to ignite its 33 Raptor engines to lift off, then
separate from the Starship second stage, which would then blast further
into space.
Super Heavy is expected to re-ignite some engines and return toward the
Gulf of Mexico for a "soft splash-down" to simulate a landing that would
otherwise be on land.
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SpaceX's Starship rocket prototype is pictured in the rocket launch
area in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., May 12, 2024. REUTERS/Veronica
Gabriela Cardenas/File Photo
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Meanwhile in space, Starship is expected to trek around the globe
heading for the Indian Ocean to make a second attempt to survive the
intense heat of atmospheric re-entry - the crucial point at which it
failed in March.
The rocket is covered with hundreds of small black tiles designed to
protect against the extreme heat encountered while diving through
Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.
"The main goal of this mission is to get much deeper into the
atmosphere during reentry, ideally through max heating," Musk, CEO
of SpaceX, wrote on social media on Saturday.
Much is riding on SpaceX's development of Starship, relied upon by
NASA as it aims to return astronauts to the moon in 2026 in a
rivalry with China, which plans to send its astronauts there by
2030. China has made several recent advances in its lunar program,
including a second landing on the moon's far side in a sample
retrieval mission.
Despite Starship's development appearing quicker than other rocket
programs, it has been slower than Musk originally envisioned. A
Japanese billionaire who initially paid to fly Starship around the
moon canceled his flight last week, citing schedule uncertainties.
And Musk's drive to rapidly build Starship has endangered SpaceX
workers in Texas and California, a Reuters investigation found.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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