SpaceX's Starship successfully launched on first orbital test flight

Its first attempt on Monday was scrubbed at the last minute due to an issue with the pressurisation system on Starship's first stage, a huge booster called Super Heavy.

Starship has launched, with the Super Heavy booster firing up its Raptor engines and lifting off the pad a little after 8:28 a.m. CT (6:58a-pm IST) from Starbase in Texas.

"Liftoff of Starship!" SpaceX wrote in a tweet

"Starship has cleared the pad and beach! Vehicle is on a nominal flight path," it added.

According to John Insprucker, SpaceX principal integration engineer, the SpaceX teams had only "good news" and that there were no significant issues with the launch vehicle.

"Everything continues to go well for an on-time launch," he said during launch.

On Thursday morning, Musk tweeted "All systems currently green for launch."

Earlier on Tuesday he tweeted that the company is working on many issues to prepare for the launch.

"The team is working around the clock on many issues. Maybe 4/20, maybe not," Musk said.

The Super Heavy booster will likely make a hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after liftoff.

Starship's upper-stage spacecraft will make a partial lap around Earth, coming down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii around 90 minutes after launch.

"With a test such as this, success is measured by how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship," the company said.

SpaceX aims to use Starship as a fully reusable transportation system to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.

Starship is the tallest rocket ever assembled. The fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket stands 394 feet tall, and is about 30 feet in diameter.

--IANS rvt/vd

( 352 Words)

2023-04-20-19:30:05 (IANS)