SpaceX’s Starship SN15 lands successfully

Key points:

•   Elon Musk's SpaceX sends off and then landed the newest model of its Starship rocket on Wednesday.

•  The flight was the fifth high-altitude test of a Starship model and the first that came to an end without the rocket crashed.

• Musk's company is growing Starship to originate cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

On this Wednesday, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched successfully and landed the latest model of its Starship rocket. It settled in one piece, and as the official live stream came to an end. Tiny methane fire can be still found at the base, but so far, it has remained intact.

Elon Musk tweeted "Starship landing nominal" as he plans for his presentation on Saturday Night Live, and a stream from columnists in the area reveals that SN15 will remain to stand on the pad. At the beginning of this month, $3 billion has been awarded to SpaceX by NASA to establish a lunar variation of Starship to transport astronauts to the moon for the sake of the agency's Artemios missions.

Earlier this month, NASA awarded SpaceX a nearly $3 billion contract to build a lunar variation of Starship to carry astronauts to the moon's surface for the agency's Artemis missions. Though, while Musk's company persists in moving forward with Starship evolution, NASA put on hold SpaceX work on the HLS program after Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Leidos' subsidiary Dynetics each registered objections to the NASA settlement grant.

The Starship SN15 flight was quite similar to the ones SpaceX has conveyed in the prior six months, with the inspection flights of models SN8, SN9, SN10 and SN11. While all of the previous rockets launched firmly and completed various expansion goals, all four prototypes were explosively demolished– SN8 and SN9 on collision during landing trials, SN10 a few minutes after landing, and SN11 minutes before its landing trial.

The SN11 transportation didn't get it back to the ground, while SN10 settled briefly before collapsing after landing too severely and damaging its legs. With one solid high-altitude test below its area, SpaceX has gone closer to its conception of reusable Starships that fly to the ISS, the moon, around the Earth and beyond.

The Starship models stand at about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and three Raptor rocket engines power all. It is composed of stainless steel. It resembles the last variant of the rocket that Musk revealed in 2019. SpaceX recorded in a report on its website that SN15 features "vehicle improvements across structures, avionics and software" associated with the previous Starship models.

"Specifically, a new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellant architecture in the aft skirt, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration," announced. The Federal Aviation Administration, which has an investigator at SpaceX's facilities to observe the test flights, conducted a "mishap" investigation of the SN11 flight.

Last week the FAA announced the authorisation of the following three Starship launches – Starship SN15, SN16, and SN16 – saying it will "verify that SpaceX implemented corrective actions arising from the SN11 mishap investigation." The FAA authorised multiple launches at once "because SpaceX is making few modifications to the launch vehicle and relied on the FAA's approved methodology to calculate the risk to the public."

However, Elon Musk has promised a lunar excursion in 2023 to the Japanese online retail billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. Mr Maezawa will fly around the moon in a Starship with eight other members. Musk has also stated that he will initiate transporting on uncrewed aviation to Mars in 2024. Even if the  founder's timelines might appear positive at times, he has also acquired a status for ultimately reaching his ends, no matter how formidable.

After SpaceX Sticks its Landing, Elon Musk Talks about a City on Mars

Elon Musk Space Company did everything right this time to successfully launch a rocket in the space and bring it back to the earth. It seems like SpaceX is riding on the success of the Star Wars: Force Awakens, pun intended. It should be noted that last time SpaceX launched a rocket it blew up like a fireball which left Elon Musk red faced.

SpaceX writes a new chapter in space history

This time rocket has a flawless launch then it reappeared in the hemisphere and quietly settled down on the landing pas at Cape Canaveral. It was the first time that rocket has been able to successfully land after delivering the required devices in the orbit. This rocket even created the sonic boom, which was a deafening sound to be heard across the station. This speed sound was created when rocket started travelling through the air than the speed of sound.

Features of the iconic SpaceX rocket

SpaceX rocket, which created a sensation in the space exploration towers some 15 stories tall. A number of people and agencies in the space community have appreciated the SpaceX achievement in shooting a rocket into the space and bringing its back on the earth. It will help in commercializing space with such rockets, which can be used again and again with better precision and control.

Incidentally, the ability recover and reuse the first stage of rockets is the most expensive part as it houses the engines. This feature will certainly help in dramatically lowering the cost of the space travel and it will help in making the space travel much more accessible. Elon Musk went say that it will be much like having an aircraft, which can be used many while other aircraft can only be used once.

SpaceX rocket key to lowering costs of space travel and rocket development

The savings brought by the reusing the rockets in upcoming will help in lowering both the space travel costs along with lowering the cost of building rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket which was used by SpaceX costs around $60 million to build and the fuel costs around $200,000. Given the fact it can be reused again the cost of building a new rocket is simply taken out of the equation.

Musk has revealed its main aim of colonizing the Mars and the successful launch & landing of Flacon 9 shows that the same technology can be used to build powerful rocket in upcoming future. Elon Musk was hopeful that with more advancement and better use of technology he will be able to build a city on Mars someday.

Currently SpaceX is focusing on perfecting the landings and other aspect of the rockets. Along with Boeing, SpaceX happened to have contract with NASA to launch astronauts to the International Space Station. The first flight for this purpose is expected to take place in 2017 and it will mark the first time when US has launched astronauts into the space from the American soil.