Successful landing of the world’s most powerful rocket from space

New Delhi: Elon Musk and his company SpaceX are once again in the headlines and the reason for this is their Starship rocket. This rocket has proved to be a star like its name. On Sunday, SpaceX conducted the fifth test of its most powerful rocket Starship, which has been successful. The special thing about this was that this rocket was not only launched but also brought back to the launching pad where a tower built there caught this rocket. To catch the rocket, two metal arms have been installed in this tower, which has been named ‘Chopstick’.

This entire process of launching, re-entry and returning to the tower of the Starship rocket was completed in about one hour and 5 minutes. On October 13, at 5:55 pm, the Starship rocket was launched from Boca Chica, Texas. A few minutes after the flight, the rocket’s super heavy booster separated from the other part (spacecraft). Where this spacecraft was made to make a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean. So during this time, the rocket’s super heavy booster went about 96 kilometers from the Earth and returned to the launchpad and the tower caught it. SpaceX has described it as the biggest day in the history of engineering and called Starship the world’s most powerful rocket.

According to the information, Starship will be able to carry up to 150000 kg of payload in Earth’s orbit. Apart from this, it is also capable of moon mission, Earth to Earth transportation and interplanetary transportation. Talking about its second feature, the height of Starship is 164 feet and the diameter is 9 meters. Its payload capacity is 100 to 150 tonnes, while 6 engines have been installed in it. Out of these, 3 are Raptor and three are Raptor vacuum engines.

On the other hand, talking about its booster, it is completely reusable. This rocket can return to the Earth’s atmosphere shortly after launching and can also be caught through the tower built on this launching site. It has 33 Raptor engines installed. The special thing is that Starship is a very important project of Elon Musk and his SpaceX. Starship aircraft is also to be used in NASA’s Artemis program (through which humans will be sent to the moon once again), as well as Elon Musk is also planning to send it to Mars. The first orbital test of Starship was done on 20 April 2023, then it failed. In fact, Starship blasted in the air within minutes of launch. However, SpaceX then considered its flight from the launch pad as a big success.

At the same time, Starship could not do anything special in the second test as well. In the second test conducted on 18 November 2023, there was a defect in the separation stage. Then the booster which was to land back on the launch pad exploded at an altitude of 90 kilometers in the Earth. At the same time, after a while, the second part i.e. Starship spacecraft also had a technical fault due to which it had to be destroyed.

Talking about the third test, it was carried out on 14 March 2024. During this time it was successful to a great extent but after reentry, contact with the Starship was lost. During this, after reaching the orbit, the Starship opened and closed the payload door and it was also successful in reentering the atmosphere, but due to the loss of contact, this test was not completely successful.

About 3 months later, on June 6, SpaceX conducted the fourth test of Starship. This testing of Starship was completely successful. It was launched from Boca Chica, Texas, during the mission of about an hour, the Starship was taken into space and made a controlled landing back on Earth. Then its booster was landed in the Gulf of Mexico.