Elon Musk’s SpaceX released out-of-this-world photos of its Starship’s third launch test as the company attempts to send the world’s largest rocket into space this month.
The Starship and its Super Heavy booster were filled with more than 10 million pounds of propellant, including liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
The massive rocket stands 395 feet tall and has 33 Raptor engines that deliver 17 million pounds of thrust, the force exerted by the rocket that causes it to take off.
However, the world’s most powerful rocket will remain grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completes its investigation into the mishap that opened when a previous Starship took off and exploded in mid-air in November.
The Starship is filled with 10 million pounds of propellant including liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
The test launch took place at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The force released by Starship at launch is nearly double that of the Saturn V, which was the most powerful rocket in NASA’s space launch arsenal until Elon Musk entered the picture.
Musk has previously estimated that the total development cost of the Starship project will range between $2 billion and $10 billion.
SpaceX photographs of its launch rehearsal show the rocket spewing smoke from all angles as it reached the T-10 second countdown.
Musk hopes to fully launch Starship at least nine times this year with the intention of eventually landing humans on Mars.
The company has struggled to obtain FAA approval after its two failed launches, the first of which ended in an explosion over the Gulf of Mexico in April of last year.
It was supposed to travel 90 miles above the ground for 90 minutes, but shortly after the Super Heavy booster detached, Starship exploded over the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas, about four minutes into the mission.
After the explosion, SpaceX posted on
The Starship rocket is 395 feet tall and has 33 Raptor engines that generate 17 million pounds of thrust.
SpaceX has nine launches planned this year, despite not yet receiving FAA approval
The FAA announced it was temporarily grounding the entire Starship fleet shortly after the explosion, saying in a statement: “An anomaly occurred during climb and prior to stage separation, resulting in the loss of the vehicle,” CNN reported.
He continued: “The return to flight of the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety.”
The FAA closed its investigation in September, saying the company had taken 63 corrective actions, including redesigning the rocket’s hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesigning its launch pad and testing safety-critical systems, including the Autonomous Flight Safety System.
Two months later, SpaceX made its second launch attempt, but it failed about eight minutes into the test mission when it reached an altitude of 91 miles above the Earth’s surface before exploding.
“More things were successful than in the previous test, including some new capabilities that were significant,” Carissa Christensen, chief executive of space analytics firm BryceTech, told Reuters at the time.
“There is no money or patience for unlimited testing,” he said, “but for a vehicle so different and so large, two, three, four, five tests are not excessive.”
After the failed launch of the second Starship, the FAA said it would not authorize SpaceX’s Starship to take off without further safety considerations, but a spokesperson told Payload that the FAA is working closely with the company to give it approval.
“They’re looking at a pretty aggressive launch schedule this year,” Kelvin Coleman, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said last month at a Commercial Space Transportation Conference in DC, ArsTechnica reported.
‘If you make modifications and you do them one by one, it’s a lot of work. We’ve been talking to SpaceX constantly around the clock, talking about how we do this.
He added: “We are committed to the company, so we will work with them to get them back up and running as soon as possible.”
Coleman said the FAA hopes to be able to issue a launch license to SpaceX for its Starship flight by mid-March, as the company aims to conduct at least nine launches in 2024.
Starship is currently not capable of sending humans to Mars, but that could all change with the development of Elon Musk’s Starship, which has been built to take the first astronauts to the Red Planet in 2030.
Its creation is part of the billionaire’s broader vision of becoming a “multiplanetary species,” first starting a human colony on Mars and even going so far as to build cities.