by The next Starship prototype under the SN5 index has successfully passed the first static fire tests and is ready to enter the stage of full-fledged flight tests – in the near future it should make the first jump of 150 meters. This was announced by Elon Musk on Twitter.
The Super Heavy and Starship are promising super-heavy rocket and spacecraft being developed by SpaceX to replace the current family of Falcon rockets and Dragon ships. The second stage simultaneously acts as a manned or cargo spacecraft. The rocket is being designed as fully reusable, both of its stages will be able to make a soft landing after a flight into space. In the future, SpaceX plans to use Super Heavy and Starship to send cargo and people to the Moon and Mars.
pic.twitter.com/8lpvwbeC4R
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2020
The tests took place on the night of July 31 at the SpaceX cosmodrome in the village of Boca Chica near Brownsville in southern Texas and were broadcast live on the NASASpaceflight YouTube channel.
According to a similar scheme, SpaceX preliminarily worked out all the technologies on a scaled-down Starhopper model (aka pepelats and “water tower”) last year – first there were static tests of the Starhopper engine on land, and then we saw the first flight tests of the test Starhopper with ascents 20 and 150 m.
In early May, the previous SN4 prototype passed fire tests, but eventually exploded in a second test at the end of the same month due to a fuel leak. By the way, he passed as many as 13 different tests. We talked in detail about the causes of the accident in the previous article. In short, given the specifics of Starship (no one has created anything like this), SpaceX was forced to abandon the traditional approach of design work in favor of an aggressive approach of rapid prototyping, where the likelihood of an accident is very high, as we have already mentioned many times in previous materials. Earlier Musk said that in order to create an orbital prototype of Starship, at least 20 such prototypes would need to be built.
Previously, SpaceX estimated the Starship project at $ 5 billion, how much it has spent on the development of the project to date is unknown. Musk also initially said that an orbital test launch should occur by April 2020 and there is a good chance of launching by the end of the year. Of course, everything will depend on the upcoming tests with a jump of 150 m.
SpaceX has already selected a site for a plant and engineering center in the Port of Los Angeles, where the Starship interplanetary spacecraft will be developed and assembled. In addition, SpaceX plans to create floating spaceports – for launching rockets to Mars and the Moon and hypersonic passenger transportation on Earth.
SpaceX is preparing to be the third most valuable non-public company in the world
Starship and Super Heavy are promising super-heavy rocket and spacecraft being developed by SpaceX to replace the current family of Falcon rockets and Dragon ships. The second stage simultaneously acts as a manned or cargo spacecraft. The rocket is being designed to be fully reusable, both stages will be able to make a soft landing after flight into space. The rocket will be capable of delivering cargo weighing up to 150 tons to low-Earth orbit in a fully reusable configuration with the return of both stages (Super Heavy and Starship) to Earth. rocket system BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) and BFS (Big Falcon Ship), which was then called ITS (Interplanetary Transport System), was presented by Elon Musk at the International Astronautics Congress back in September 2016. In November 2018, Musk announced the renaming of the BFR booster to Super Heavy and the BFS ship to Starship. It is with its help that SpaceX plans to send a Japanese billionaire to the moon around 2023. After about 10 test orbital launches, SpaceX expects to make the first demonstration manned Starship launch without people.In 2022, the first Starship spacecraft without a crew should fly to Mars with various kinds of equipment in in preparation for colonization, in 2023 – with the help of Starship it is planned to send a tourist delegation led by a Japanese billionaire to the Moon (flyby without landing), and in 2024 the first colonizers will go to Mars on Starship. In 2019, Musk said that in the future tickets Starship (up to 100 people can comfortably accommodate and travel in the passenger compartment) will be sold at a price below $ 500 thousand (in both directions), adding that in the future the price may drop to $ 100 thousand. He also said that from 70 percentage likely to be among those who move to live on Mars .. post-facts {margin: 20px 0 15px 0; padding: 15px 0 15px 23px; mar gin-bottom: 0; border-top: 1px solid #ddd; border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd} .post-facts li {list-style: none; position: relative} .post-facts li: after {content: “”; display: block; width: 8px; height: 8px; background-color: # 40b8f2; transform: rotate (45deg); position: absolute; left: -20px; top: 7px} .post-facts li + li { margin-top: 4px}
