Elon Musk’s SpaceX company announced on Friday that it was intended to lead a new flight test for its megafusée Starship on Friday, intended to go to the moon and March, after a black series of trials marked by explosions.
This tenth flight of the largest rocket ever designed must be held as soon as possible on Sunday, August 24 since the base of the American company in Texas, announced the latter on its site. He will follow three trials this year during which SpaceX has undergone multiple technical disappointments. The first two had been marked by the spectacular explosion at the start of the flight of the upper floor of the rocket, the vessel, causing twice the rains of debris above the Caribbean.
At the end of May, the starship vessel had this time managed to reach space this time but had ended up exploding before its scheduled end of the mission, after a fuel leak made it lose control. The rocket propeller had suffered the same fate, disintegrating before touching the water. He had to fall back into the Gulf of Mexico and not to be caught up in mechanical arms, a spectacular maneuver that only SpaceX masters.
These incidents are far from unpublished because Elon Musk’s company is betting on a risky strategy: the launch of multiple prototypes in order to correct the problems encountered in flight situations. But this succession of disappointments, to which was added in June an explosion during a ground test, gives rise to questions on the real advance in the development of starship, while Elon Musk continues to count on first launches around March 2026.