The second test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket is scheduled to take place today. It is scheduled to be launched from a test base located on Boca Chica Beach near Brownsville, Texas. In the future, during the Artemis III mission, astronauts will fly to the Moon on a rocket.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX company announced on social media that the Starship rocket is ready for launch. The test flight was originally scheduled for Friday, but was moved to Saturday. The reason for this change, as Elon Musk wrote, was the replacement of the actuator controlling the movement of one of the ballasts.
The twenty-minute starting window will begin on Saturday at 2 p.m. Polish time.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Wednesday consent to conduct the second flight of the Starship rocket.
The launch site will be the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
“The FAA has determined that SpaceX has met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements,” the agency said in a statement. Before the launch was approved, the company had to make hundreds of corrections to the rocket design.
The largest rocket ever built
As reported by the space portal. com, Starship is the most powerful rocket in the world. It consists of a ship and a booster called Super Heavy. Both modules together are as much as 120 meters high – it is the largest rocket ever built. The Starship is to carry astronauts to the Moon during the Artemis III mission, and eventually also take people to Mars.
SpaceX conducted the first test flight of Starship on April 20, 2023, but the rocket malfunctioned and was intentionally detonated minutes after launch. The second flight will probably be the same. The Starship will rise to an altitude of 234 kilometers and begin to orbit the Earth. It will then fall into the Pacific Ocean, about 225 kilometers off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Booster Super Heavy is expected to return via a different route and collide with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico approximately 32 km from Boca Chica Beach.
“The first flight test provided many lessons that directly contributed to several improvements to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to increase the likelihood of success for future flights,” SpaceX said.
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