Starship Rocket, Successfully Reaching Milestone Is Important In Third Flying Test

JAKARTA - The third orbital test for Elon Musk's latest generation rocket, Starship, proved to be the charm of Thursday morning, March 14 local time. The rocket managed to achieve many historic goals during the orbital flight test, after two attempts last year ended in failure.

The two-stage spacecraft, which is higher than the Statue of Liberty, were able to take off from the Boca Chica flight test facility, Texas, SpaceX at Teluk Beach at 09:25 a.m. local time.

With cheers from SpaceX's control mission center, the plane rose in a sparkling flare of orange smoke: an explosion recorded via livestream cameras on and outside Starship.

This is the most powerful and largest launch vehicle ever built by humans. Starship achieved one of its first goals of successive separation from its Super Heavy boosters.

However, the feed was cut off before the booster, 'Booster 10,' could make the planned soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, making the fate of the reusable rocket unclear.

Although they managed to form a 'plasma barrier' from an heated atmosphere amid a decline with the help of air friction, the 'Ship 28' which can also be reused failed to make a soft landing in the Indian Ocean, although it managed to complete its orbital flight path. This starship is powered by cryogenic frozen methane fuel and liquid oxygen.

Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/FaNcasuKaq

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14, 2024

Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/FaNcasuKaq

Reusability means that all the expensive and complicated hardware on the SpaceX aircraft, including 33 full-grade combustion cycle Raptor machines (FFSCs) on Starship's own booster and six Raptors, will not be marine debris.

This efficient design aims to reduce the cost of loading to orbit, reaching a price of around 10 million US dollars (Rp157 billion) to carry 100 tons of material and one day NASA personnel into space, to the moon, and, if all goes well, it can fly to Mars.

The start of the test, all 33 FFSC Raptor engines on the booster successfully worked in their hot-stage combustion, fully functioning as rockets headed for orbit.

Previously the FAA gave SpaceX permission for its third Starship flight on Wednesday morning, March 13.

"FAA determines that SpaceX meets all security, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements," the agency said in a statement.

FAA-grade environmental investigations are focused on the environmental impact of Starship's entry and water landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX said it had been'significantly expanding' the Starship fire extinguishing system and upgrading autonomous systems that should have triggered an earlier destruction order during the failure of previous rocket launches.

The launch of the first test and failed on April 20, 2023, written as 4/20 in America, an internet meme and references to Musk's preferred cannabis culture seen rockets explode just 25 miles in the sky after the booster failed to escape.

SpaceX was forced to manually shut down the test flight four minutes later, as the rocket began to spin dangerously out of control.

Starship is key to SpaceX's future in providing reusable and affordable space transportation.

Unlike the Saturn V rocket that takes astronauts to the moon, this SpaceX version of the aircraft is designed to be fully reusable after returning to Earth in a bid to reduce costs.

NASA hopes on SpaceX to provide rockets that will help them bring humans to the moon and one day to Mars. They are also expected to be ahead of China in today's space race. Time continues to run for the modified Starship to be ready for the planned moon landing in 2025.

SpaceX itself is deeply involved in the astro business, such as sending supplies and crew to the International Space Station and bringing astronauts back to Earth.