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On SpaceX’s 15th test flight, thruster recovery was aborted due to technical problems, but the Starship spacecraft was placed in orbit. If it is successfully recovered tomorrow, it will mark a historic success for a fully reusable rocket.
Space exploration technology company owned by technology tycoon Elon Musk (spacex ) The World’s Biggest and Most Powerful Canceled Todayrocket Recovery operation of the Starship thruster, but insisted that it was still possible to capture the Starship spacecraft. If successful, this will be the first attempt of its kind.
Agence France-Presse reported that a 124 meter long rocket took off.texas Southern Starship Base (Starbase) took off for its 15th test flight, but minutes later, something went wrong with this originally scheduled historic mission.
After the rocket lifted off and both stages separated in the air, a technical problem forced SpaceX to abandon plans to recover the thruster, called Super Heavy, and instead let it fall into the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft itself has entered Earth orbit, and SpaceX will attempt to retrieve it tomorrow after a 22-hour spaceflight.
If these two parts of Starship can be successfully recovered, it would mark a major milestone in the space industry’s decades-long pursuit of fully reusable rocket systems. Such systems could significantly reduce mission costs and make repeated launches possible.
SpaceX has successfully captured the thruster three times before, allowing the first stage rocket to land vertically and return to the launch site immediately after liftoff, where it was firmly embedded in the “chopsticks” robotic arm.
The entire space system is named after the Starship spacecraft. If SpaceX can successfully capture this spacecraft, it will be a key moment in the development of Starship; Some versions of Starship are designed to launch Internet satellites and data centers into orbit. Other versions will be used to take humans to the Moon and Mars.
Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said fully reusable spacecraft are the “Holy Grail” the space industry dreams of.
“No one has really done that yet,” he said. “People have been trying to do this since the days of NASA’s space shuttle. But the shuttle was kind of a compromise because it had a lot of parts that couldn’t be reused.”
Summary FAQ
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After the rocket lifted off and completed two-stage separation, SpaceX encountered a technical problem, so it abandoned recovering the super-heavy thruster and instead let it fall into the Gulf of Mexico to ensure that the risks of subsequent missions were controllable.
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The text reported that the Starship spacecraft had successfully entered Earth’s orbit. SpaceX expects to attempt to retrieve the spacecraft tomorrow after a nearly 22-hour spaceflight. This will be an important test.
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If both rocket body stages can be successfully captured, it will be an important milestone in the space industry’s pursuit of a fully reusable rocket system for many years, which will help reduce costs and increase the feasibility of frequent launches in the future.
