Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built for space travel. According to SpaceX, it is this rocket that can become the main vehicle for American astronauts in the exploration of the Moon and Mars. The rocket consists of two parts – the Super Heavy upper stage and the Starship spacecraft. The total starting weight is 5,000 tons. Height – 120 meters, of which about 50 meters fall on the ship located in the upper part. Diameter – 9 meters. The first stage has 33 Raptor engines, the second 6 engines. According to the flight plan, the rocket is capable of delivering from 150 tons of cargo in near-Earth orbit in reusable mode up to 250 tons in one.
The Starship has been tested many times, and not without failures. It crashed four times before finally flying into the stratosphere in 2021 and then landing successfully in an upright position. As for the first step, today’s flight was to be the first.
Musk himself, before the start, spoke in the spirit that the chances of passing a test are as great as its failure. According to his description, the main purpose of the test was to send the rocket on a kind of long flight: “If only we didn’t destroy the spaceport.”
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