Starship Rocket ready for testing for the 5th time: Elon Musk

Starship Next Launch: The world’s heaviest rocket ‘Starship’ is ready to fly again. If everything goes as planned, it can be tested again in the next few weeks. The 400-foot-high Starship has undergone four tests so far. After initial failures, it showed promise and was almost successful in its fourth test. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has high hopes from this rocket. In the future, it may have the ability to take astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that the fifth test of Starship is also going to happen soon. He said in a post on X, 5th flight in the next four weeks.

What is Starship Rocket

Starship is a reusable rocket. It has mainly two parts. The first is the passenger carry section, i.e. the one in which the passengers will stay, while the second is the super heavy rocket booster. The length of Starship and booster combined is 394 feet (120 meters). While the weight is 50 lakh kilograms. According to the information, the Starship rocket is capable of generating a thrust of 16 million pounds (70 meganewtons). This is almost twice more than NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

The rocket has been tested four times so far

Starship has been tested four times so far. It was first tested in April 2023. Then in November. It was tested for the third and fourth time on March 14 and June 6 this year. All launches were done from SpaceX’s launch site Starbase in South Texas.

Improvements have been made with each test. For example, during the most recent test, the Super Heavy and the ship separated from each other on time and returned to Earth as planned. They landed in the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean.

Through the upcoming test, the company would like to remove all the uncertainties related to this rocket, so that it can get government approval to fly it in the future.