Starship V3 Just Blew Up in the Ocean, and It’s Actually a Massive Win
Elon’s latest shiny metal tube went for a swim, hit a target, and then turned into a pile of confetti. While the internet trolls are busy sharpening their knives, the engineers are probably popping champagne over a controlled splashdown.
The IFT-12 test flight featured the brand-new B19/S39 configuration, marking the official debut of the third-generation Starship hardware. Standing at a staggering 124 meters, this tower of steel relies on the upgraded Raptor 3 engines to generate an eye-watering 8,000 tons of thrust, making it the beefiest machine to ever grace the launchpad.
During the hour-long mission, the ship performed an intentional simulation of a landing in the Indian Ocean. Following the flight profile, the vehicle successfully touched down on the water, executed a graceful rollover, and promptly disintegrated in a spectacular firework show. This planned self-destruction is the company's quirky way of saying they’ve gathered enough data to refine the next iteration.
Expensive hardware turning into scrap metal is apparently just part of the iterative design process in this timeline. Whether this signals the dawn of affordable space travel or just the world's most expensive pyrotechnics display remains a question for the history books.
Source: SpaceX
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