Show company broadcastSpaceX“Explosion Starship Missile Its giant, dedicated to missions to the Moon and Mars, took off on its first test orbital flight Thursday, shortly after its launch from Texas?

The explosion did not spell defeat for the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, as the rocket successfully launched from its launch pad, a first for SpaceX.

Musk congratulated his company’s crews after the rocket lifted off, promising a new test “in a few months.”

“Congratulations to the SpaceX team on this amazing first test!” “We have learned a lot for the next test we will be conducting in a few months,” he tweeted.

Black and silver tall missile separated 120 About an hour meters from its launch pad 8:30 p.m I local time (13:30 GMT), coinciding with cries of joy issued by employees of “SpaceX”.

The expected rocket took off from the “Starbase” space station in the southern state of Texas, USA.

The reasons that led to the explosion of the “starship” are not known until now, its launch was primarily aimed at collecting a large amount of data to benefit from the following samples.

On Monday, SpaceX made its first attempt to launch the rocket, but it was postponed due to a technical glitch that arose in the last minutes of preparations.

“This is the first flight of a very large and complex rocket,” said SpaceX chief Elon Musk, noting that the test was “fraught with enormous risks.”

The world’s largest rocket

The starship is tall 120 meters longer than NASA’s new giant SLS rocket (98 meters), which was launched on its first mission in November, from a Saturn rocket 5(111 meters) for the Apollo missions.

Starship should have a take-off force twice as strong as the SLS and Saturn. 5It is the most powerful missile in the world.

A never-before-seen test flight of the two-stage Black and Silver missile, the first of which bears the name “Super Heavy”.33 Vote at least.

Previously conducted flights were limited to the “Starship” vehicle, the second stage of the rocket, as sub-orbital test flights (up to an altitude of about ten kilometers) were carried out.

The American space agency “NASA” chose this vehicle to transport its astronauts to the moon during the “Artemis” mission. 3An official launch is scheduled for next year 2025.

NASA President Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX, tweeting that “every great achievement in history requires a certain level of calculated risk,” adding that he “looks forward to the next test.”

An independent colony on Mars

Elon Musk was keen to moderate expectations, saying it was unlikely the rocket would get into orbit on the first try.

He expressed confidence that the launch pad would not be destroyed if the “super heavy” engines exploded during takeoff.

“If this happens, if the launch pad is destroyed, it will take months to rebuild it,” he said, “and if the launch pad moves far enough from the platform before any problems are recorded, we will consider this a success.”

As for the “Starship” vehicle, it must return to Earth with a brake missile. And “Starship” has already undergone two years of testing 2020 And2021 It ended in an explosion, before finally succeeding in landing safely.

Elon Musk’s strategy to produce a completely reusable rocket aims to deliver low cost. Each trip for the vehicle costs only “a few million” dollars, he said.

Musk believes humans may need hundreds of “starship” missiles to reach other planets. His ultimate goal is to establish an independent colony on Mars.

France 24/AFP