Elon Musk‘s SpaceX is making design changes to its ambitious Starship launch vehicle in a bid to improve performance including changes to the positioning of its front flap.
What Happened: The forward flaps of the vehicle have been moved leeward towards the nose of the vehicle in the new version of the vehicle, in a bid to improve reliability and ease of manufacturing.
“This is an important design improvement,” SpaceX CEO Musk said about the change on X.
During Starship’s last test flight in early June, Starship sustained damage to its flap while also losing many heat-shield tiles designed to protect against the extreme heat of reentry to Earth's atmosphere. The entire flight lasted one hour and six minutes from launch. The key object of the flight was to re-enter Earth and the mission achieved it while withstanding damage.
Earlier this month, Musk pegged the fifth flight of Starship for around Aug. 2. For the upcoming flight, the goal is to catch the booster back at Starbase using the launch tower’s mechanical arms, marking a significant demonstration of Starship's reusability.
Why It Matters: SpaceX is currently looking to ensure full reusability for its Starship rocket. Reuse of rockets, the company believes, is integral to bringing down the costs of spaceflight as the most cost is taken up in building the launch vehicle.
Starship is touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, standing 121 meters tall and weighing approximately 5,000 tonnes. SpaceX is expected to have at least six test flights of the Starship this year, as per CEO Elon Musk‘s latest estimate from March.
NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon as part of its Artemis program. The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
Musk, meanwhile, is hopeful that the Starship will enable the company to take humans to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars as well.
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