By: Klyde Carpizo
(Image from Space X)
One of the outstanding achievements of SpaceX this year is landing a prototype Starship, Serial Number 15 (SNL 15) completing a high-altitude ascent and landing on Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. EST (2224 GMT)
SN15’s previous prototypes all ended up in bites and pieces through explosively failed landings attempted similar flights and landing over the past 5 months making a trial-and-error method to see and understand the best and optimal way for starship to launch and land, SpaceX also gathers data in each attempt as it improves each launch resulting SN15’s success.
"SN15 has vehicle improvements across structures, avionics and software, and the engines that will allow more speed and efficiency throughout production and flight: specifically, a new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellant architecture in the aft skirt, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration,"
SpaceX representatives report
But SN15 also struggles to find control on returning to ground, also a small leak of fire at the ground from the rocket was seen after touchdown at Space X’s R&D Facility and base at Texas. The small fire is not an unusual circumstance since starship is still on the development on improving its test vehicle design.
Elon musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX tweeted “Startship Landing Nominal!” as he is happy with the result of the rocket’s landing.
SpaceX is on the run on a hectic schedule for the Artemis mission to be fulfilled in year 2024 as NASA awarded the company a $2.6 Billion contract for its primary support. The basic principle of the mission is to carry humans and instrumental scientific equipment to study and make a base on the moon. It is indeed the first of the company’s vision and goal for interstellar flights in the future on reaching Mars and other planets for the civilization to thrive in the next generations to come.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/science/spacex-starship-launch.html
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