Elon Musk’s space company Spacex managed to hit the first floor of the Starship rocket, which lost the second floor of the rocket.
SpaceX intended to demonstrate strength a few hours after the first orbital flight of its blue origin competitor. And it is successful. For this new test flight, SpaceX engineers succeeded in a complex maneuver: catching up in flight on the first floor of the rocket. SpaceX had already managed to recover the first floor of its rocket last October. Elon Musk tried to prove that this technical feat was not the result of chance, as the fuel dissolved in the Gulf of Mexico in November.
This time, a few minutes after launch and separation of the two floors, the propellant was fired in a controlled manner towards the firing step, where it was immobilized by mechanical arms installed on the launch tower, nicknamed “The Baguettes”.
Mechazilla has caught the super heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/aq91tloyzy
– SpaceX (@spacex) January 16, 2025
Bill Nelson, who welcomed SpaceX to NASA’s outgoing NASA chief for throwing back fuel, stressed on X that “the space flights weren’t easy.”
Congratulations to @Spacex on Starship’s seventh test flight and second successful booster capture.
SpaceFlight is not easy. It’s anything but routine. That’s why these tests are so important – no matter what comes our way to the Moon and on to Mars #Artemis.
– Bill Nelson (@senbillnelson) January 17, 2025
Lost contact with the second floor
However, the entire test flight did not go as planned. Contact was lost with the second floor of the Starship Mega Rocket on the night of Thursday to Friday. There was “an anomaly upstairs,” said Dan Huot, a Space Company official. Elon Musk clarified to X that the explosion was likely caused by an “oxygen/fuel leak.”
Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship’s engine firewall that was large enough to remove pressure beyond the vent capacity.
Aside from the obvious double checking for leaks, we will give this volume and…
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
Due to this loss of communication with the second floor, the American aviation regulator, the FAA, reported that “the aircraft briefly slowed and the aircraft diverted to fall into the spacecraft debris.”
Go to the moon and Mars
Since the last test, “major improvements” had been made to the spacecraft, a rocket that went to the moon and Mars. It is known that the SpaceX company is carrying out high-risk tests in order to quickly adapt its rocket to the problems encountered. A risky method that made her successful.