Elon Musk Sets Goal for SpaceX Starship Launch: ‘Don’t Blow Up the Launchpad’

NASA is paying SpaceX to build a version of the vehicle to carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon’s surface for the Artemis III and IV missions later in the decade. The spacecraft is also central to Mr. Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars.

What will happen during the flight?

For Monday’s test flight, Starship will fly part of the way around the Earth, starting from Texas and splashing down in waters off Hawaii.

Eventually SpaceX hopes to regularly land both the Super Heavy booster and Starship orbital vehicle to reuse them for future launches. But the spacecraft for Monday’s flight will crash in the ocean and sink. They are meant as a first test of the vehicles, and the data will enable engineers to fix what does not work and make improvements.

Mr. Musk on Sunday night said a key goal of the flight was to get the rocket a good distance from the launch site without something going wrong.

“Just don’t blow up the launchpad,” he said.

About eight minutes after Monday’s launch, the Super Heavy booster will splash into the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship vehicle will fly higher into space, reaching an altitude of about 150 miles and traveling around the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere. If it survives re-entry, about 90 minutes after launching, it will splash into the Pacific Ocean some 62 miles north of the island of Kauai.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/science/starship-spacex-launch-stream.html