SpaceX Starship has a 50% chance of crashing
American billionaire Elon Musk has begun preparing the public for the failed launch of the Starship spacecraft. But the head of SpaceX promises that the launch will be impressive.
Here's What We Know
Starship will be used in 2025 to land humans on the moon as part of the Artemis III mission. The spacecraft is also due to take part in manned missions to Mars 20 years from now. However, it needs at least one successful flight test to begin with.
Elon Musk promised that the first test flight of Starship would take place in December 2022. The launch was then postponed until the first quarter of 2023. Now the head of SpaceX says that the test flight will probably take place next month i.e. in April, and the chances of success will not be more than 50%.
The SpaceX CEO is not ready to guarantee that the spacecraft will be able to reach orbit at the first attempt. However, Musk is confident that the test will be impressive and not boring. It should also be noted that SpaceX will conduct several tests in 2023, and the overall chance of the ship reaching orbit is as high as 80%.
Starship is primarily focused on delivering people and cargo to Mars and the Moon, but the ship will also perform other tasks. For example, it will be used to orbit the massive, high-performance second-generation Starlink satellites.
The new spacecraft will be the most powerful system in the world. It consists of the spacecraft itself, Starship, with six Raptor engines, and a first stage with 33 Raptor engines. The first stage is called Super Heavy.
Source: space
