SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
Did they annihilate the launchpad again?
They made a bunch of really cool changes to address the issues from last time, and they seem to have worked almost perfectly. For one, they built a giant water cooled steel plate under the launch mount (affectionately called the Booster Bidet), and the engineering behind it is pretty neat.
I think they use a similar fluid absorber for rocket and space shuttle launches, and have for a long time. So they’re just catching up to NASA.
Just like the SpaceX engineers told musk they should do the first time.