Spacex Megarocket StarsHip launched for the ninth time today (May 27), on a bold test trip that included the first important reuse of NATSHIP devices.
The StarsHip phases were separated as planned on flight 9, and the upper stage reached an area, which was improving the most recent trains of the giant vehicle. But Spacex ended with the loss of the two phases before they could achieve full flight targets.
“The vehicle has reached the scanting of the scheduled ship, so a significant improvement in the last flight!” The CEO of Spacex Elusk wrote On social media After the trip. “The leaks have caused the loss of the main tank pressure during the coast and a lot of good data that can be reviewed.” Musk said that the launch operations of the next three group could start every three to four weeks in the coming days.
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Spacex develops Starship, the largest and strongest missile that has ever built, to help humanity to settle the moon and Mars, among other tasks.
The two phases are a giant supporter called Super Heavy and 171 feet (52 meters) of spacecraft in the upper stage known as Starship, or simply “SHIP”. Both are designed to be fully and fully used, both of which are supported by the new RAPTOR engine from Spacex – 33 of them for high heavy and six -charging.
Before today, a fully stacked championship was opened eight times, on every occasion from Starbase in Spacex in South Texas (which has recently become the latest city of Lone Star State). Two of these flights occurred this year – on January 16 and March 6. Both were similar mixed results.
“We are trying to do something difficult impossible.”
“You will not reach him in a straight line,” he added. “We have said that there are pitfalls, there will be a turn. But seeing that ship in space today was a moment hell for us, so congratulations to everyone who puts time, effort, race, anything or in this missile.”
On flight 7 and trip 8, high -performance flawless performance was performed, as its engine burns, then returns to Starbase to get hunting from the arms of “sticks of satiety” for the launch tower. But the ship was suffering from problems: it exploded after less than 10 minutes of launch in both tasks, and the debris rained on the islands of the Turks, Kikos and the Bahamas, respectively.
Although the two failures in the ship occurred at similar times during the trip, they had different radical reasons, according to Spacex. It is possible that a strong “consistent response” that leads to fuel leaks on flight 7, while the failure of the devices in the Raptor engine was responsible for fireworks, flight 8, the company decided.
Spacex took pain to reduce the chances of such problems on future trips, and make it so Great changes in devices And conduct a number of engine experiments on Earth in Texas. Flight 9 put this work on the test – and a new floor was also broken.
The mission started from Starbase today at 7:37 pm EST (2337 GMT; 6:37 pm local Texas time), and sending a 40 -storey missile to the sky Texas over the flame column.
It was absolutely a teacher, as it was the first reuse ever from a very heavy supporter; This one got his wings on the 7th trip in January. (Spacex exchange only four of its Raptor after that task, which means that 29 of the engines that flew today were flying.)
The company wrote in A “lessons learned from the first rejuvenation process and the subsequent performance while flying will be able Preview of the task of flight 9.
Super Heavy had a fairly different job to do today; She conducted a variety of experiments on her way to Earth. For example, he performed the supporter inverted tight instead of random return and hitting the atmosphere at a different angle.
“By increasing the amount of atmosphere on the car, the higher attack angle can lead to a decrease in the drop speed, which in turn requires a lower motivation to burn the initial landing,” he wrote to the mission inspection. “Getting data in the real world about how the supporter is able to control his journey in this upper attack corner, will contribute to improving performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of high heavy.”
These experiments have strengthened the image of Super Heavy compared to previous missions, which made another “dining sticks” in StarBase a tougher proposal. Therefore, instead of risk destroying the launch tower and other infrastructure, Spacex decided to restore the supporter for a “solid splash” in the Gulf of Mexico on Journey 9.
This was the plan, however; Super heavy did not make it too far. The supporter separated about 6 minutes and 20 seconds on today’s trip, after starting to burn his landing.
“Emphasizing that the supporter has disappeared,” said Howout. He added that the Super Heavy trip had ended “before you can reach the burning of landing.”
On the contrary, the ship improved its performance slightly this time. I arrived at the area today on a path below the Offort in the east over the Atlantic Ocean – the same basic path that the car took on flight 7 and trip 8.
But flight 9 got cutting the ship after that. The car was supposed to publish eight fake versions of SPACEX Swatal about 18.5 minutes of takeoff, which would have been a teacher for the first time for the stars program. This did not happen, however; The load door was unable to fully, so Spacex gave up the publishing attempt.
After that, about 30 minutes after the launch, the ship began to falter, which was the result of a leakage in the fuel tank systems on the ship, according to HUOT.
“Many of these [tanks] He said: “It is used to combat your positions, and so on, at this point, we have mainly lost control of our position with the mouth.”
As a result, Spacex has planned a plan to hide a RAPTOR engines in space, a test that was supposed to happen after about 38 minutes of launch. The company abandoned the hope of obtaining a soft splash of the car, and instead, it resigned to disintegrate the Indian Ocean while re -entering the ship.
Thus, the company will not get all the data that it wanted about flight 9. There was very little to get it; For example, Spacex removed some heat heat tiles on the ship to equip weak areas, and he also tried many different tile materials, including one with an active cooling system.
But the company plans to apostasy and try again soon, just as it did after flight 7 and trip 8.
“This is exactly the Spacex Road,” said Jesse Anderson, director of Spacex Manufacturing Engineering, during the FLIGHT 9 broadcast on the Internet. “We will learn, repeat, and repeat again and repeat until we get to know it.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 9:20 pm Each time on May 27 to include comments from the CEO of Spacex El Musk. It was updated at 8:27 pm EST with news of losing control of positions and the supposed demise of the Indian Ocean.
