3/15/2024 0 Comments Flat earther blasts offThe loss of SpaceX’s Starship rocket roughly four minutes into a test flight on Thursday will send its engineers in search of answers about what went wrong. SpaceX’s Starship rocket successfully took off from a launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday, but exploded roughly four minutes into its flight. James Dobbins contributed reporting from South Padre Island, Texas. (If not, SpaceX crews would scuttle it.)Īs Super Heavy descended, Starship would have continued to gain altitude until its engines switched off about nine minutes into its flight and it began coasting around the Earth.Ībout an hour later, Starship - by then over the Pacific Ocean - would have pivoted to begin a belly flop into the atmosphere, where it would have encountered extreme temperatures before splashing down about 62 nautical miles north of the island of Kauai.īut even a fully successful test probably would have ended just as Thursday’s did: in an explosion. The next major stage for the nearly 400-foot rocket would have been its Super Heavy booster engines powering down about 40 miles above the Earth, before the Starship vehicle itself separated and lit up its own engines.Īs Starship continued its journey, the massive booster would have performed a series of maneuvers before descending into the Gulf, where it would likely sink to the bottom. What would the perfect flight have looked like for Thursday’s planned test? A trip partway around the Earth, from liftoff at the launch site in South Texas to splashdown in the waters off Hawaii.īy lasting four minutes, Starship did survive past the period of maximum atmospheric stress, which happened less than a minute into flight as it arced over the Gulf of Mexico. The roughly four minutes that Starship spent airborne wasn’t close to the approximately 90 minutes that would have been ideal.
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