SpaceX successfully landed its Starship rocket on Wednesday (5) on its fifth attempt – the last four attempts resulted in explosions.
The successful test flight was a great victory for Elon Musk’s company. “Landing of nominal ship,” he tweeted. Nominal means normal in relation to space flights.
The test wasn’t entirely perfect, however, as there was a small fire at the base of the 50-meter-high rocket shortly after landing. SpaceX spokesman John Insprucker stated that this is not uncommon with the methane fuel used by the rocket, adding that engineers are still solving design problems.
According to the images transmitted online, company officials quickly extinguished the flames with a water cannon.
The rocket, named SN15, was launched at Boca China base in southern Texas at around 5:25 p.m. local time (7:25 p.m. BrasÃlia) before reaching 10 km and performing a series of flight maneuvers.
SpaceX was under additional pressure to succeed Wednesday’s flight after NASA announced that a version of the spacecraft would be used as a lunar landing module when the US space agency sends people back to the moon.
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