Elon Musk's Martian dream ended badly again. Starship, SpaceX's most powerful rocket and spacecraft ever built and docked to carry future astronauts to the Moon and beyond, launched with apparent success yesterday from the BocaChica base in the state of Texas, unlike his April experiment, which exploded shortly after liftoff.
Then, when the artifact with which Musk pursues his goal of traveling and colonizing Mars - some hope that it will become a reality and stay there - had already reached an altitude of 150 kilometers, the controllers of his company lost the signal, once the second stage had already separated.
"I think we have lost the second stage" said John Insprucker during the broadcast by X, formerly Twitter, also owned by the richest man in the world. Insprucker pointed out that everything indicated that there had been "an automatic detonation".
According to the engineers, the rocket's lower propellant stage exploded unexpectedly, in other words, "an unscheduled rapid disassembly." The top of the Starship continued its journey through space for a few more minutes and disintegrated.
Despite this new disappointment, SpaceX described this test as an "incredible success". No one doubts that there has been progress. The rocket reached further than on the other occasion.
Jim Free, associate administrator of NASA, the United States' space agency and Starship's main customer, assured that "each test represents being one step closer to putting a woman on the moon with the Artemis III program."
Musk, founder and owner of SpaceX, congratulated his team. In the other failed attempt he replied that it was necessary to "try, break and try again".
For the company, "success comes from what we learn from each experiment, and this test will improve the reliability of Starship as SpaceX aims to make life multiplanetary."
The rocket entered space without suffering the explosion that in just four minutes of flight destroyed the other vehicle that preceded it seven months ago. The two-piece rocket, which together is taller than the Statue of Liberty, soared through the space of the Gulf of Mexico in this 90-minute unmanned flight that was to end in waters off the territory of Hawaii.
The launch was followed by more than 200 million people through the social network. The broadcast celebrated the launch and there was more applause when the device surpassed the flight time achieved by its predecessor in the spring.
The main objective of this test was precisely to observe how the Starship enters space and orbits the Earth. The day this works will be proof that SpaceX's ambition is in good tune to achieve several purposes that can be summed up in one: sending humans and cargo to the Moon. This will bring the horizon Mars closer.
