In his biography of Elon Musk, writer Walter Isaacson recounts a meeting that the SpaceX CEO had with the Starship team in 2018, when the rocket was still referred to as the Big Fucking Rocket and featured a different design.
“If we keep going with carbon fire, we’re doomed. This extrapolates to death. I’ll never be able to get to Mars,” Musk said, according to Isaacson’s account. Musk himself confirmed it. He then remembered that the Atlas rockets of the 1960s were made of stainless steel and proposed using that material instead.
The book mentions that there was some resistance within SpaceX due to concerns about weight, but Musk insisted on conducting the necessary calculations. The results showed that stainless steel would actually be lighter in the extremely cold conditions of liquid oxygen and supercooled nitrogen. Additionally, its high melting point would allow SpaceX to perform open-air welding, requiring less skilled labor.
Switching to stainless steel not only significantly reduced the costs of the rocket but also enhanced its resistance to fracturing. This improvement was evident in the last three flights, especially the most recent one, where SpaceX tested the spacecraft to its limits and didn’t break it apart.
Starship’s Sixth Flight
SpaceX launched its sixth Starship rocket on Tuesday, marking a significant milestone by successfully reigniting its engines to maneuver in the vacuum of space for the first time. The rocket also demonstrated its ability to withstand atmospheric reentry under more challenging conditions than in previous flights.
However, there was a major setback. The attempt to capture the Super Heavy booster in the launch tower failed. SpaceX had successfully accomplished this during the fifth flight, but this time, the landing was aborted due to a communication failure with the tower.
Eight minutes after liftoff, the Starship spacecraft reached cruising speed and initiated a suborbital trajectory around Earth. At the 38-minute mark, it reignited one of its six Raptor engines in the vacuum of space for the first time to adjust its trajectory.
This test was crucial for future missions because it demonstrated the spacecraft’s capability to safely deorbit after launching payloads into orbit. In this case, the payload was a toy banana tethered with wires, but Starship is expected to deploy second-generation Starlink satellites soon. This will allow SpaceX to offer Internet connections of up to 1 Gbps.
The most spectacular moment of the sixth flight, which was broadcast live via the Starlink antennas, was the spacecraft’s reentry into the atmosphere. For the first time, it occurred in daylight as the Sun rose over the Indian Ocean.
Starship plunged into the plasma from an altitude of 120 miles, approaching at a more aggressive angle of attack than in previous flights. Additionally, its heat shield was missing 2,100 heat slabs compared to normal. SpaceX aimed to leave the sections of the rocket exposed where it plans to install capture hardware for landing on the Mechazilla tower.
Extreme temperatures resulted in visible damage to Starship’s forward flaps. However, it still managed to survive the maneuver and reignite its engines to ascend vertically, simulating a landing at a precise location in the ocean where a camera-equipped buoy awaited it.
The strength of stainless steel demonstrated its robustness again during the Starship’s sixth flight. However, SpaceX still has significant work ahead to ensure Starship’s heat shield can be reused quickly.
The upcoming seventh flight will be even more critical because it marks the debut of Starship 2, which features larger propellant tanks, redesigned front flaps, and an improved heat shield.
Image | SpaceX
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