Alors que la fusée géante Starship tente une seconde fois d’effectuer son premier décollage et vol d’essai dans les prochaines heures, mon ami Tezio Corteze, illustrateur hors pair, faiseur de rêves, s’est laissé allé avec cette illustration : « Petite création perso, plus symbolique qu’à l’échelle !Bon vol STARSHIP »
Quand on y pense, l’opinion qu’on peut avoir sur un tel événement est très complexe: C’est un mélange d’admiration, de souhait ardent « qu’ils » réussissent, mais également de jalousie discrète, de regrets que l’Europe dans ce domaine des « lanceurs lourds et réutilisables » n’ait pas été à la hauteur.
Quel paradoxe aujourd’hui cette statue de la Liberté, cadeau de l’Europe aux USA! Qui tient aujourd’hui à bout de bras un rival avec le potentiel (conditionnel obligatoire) de changer le cours de l’histoire du spatial.
Mais la prudence s’impose obligatoirement pour un tel vol d’essais. Je ne peux éviter de penser aux certitudes qu’on avait, le 4 juin 1996, moi en premier au site de Toucan, en compagnie de Jean-Pierre Haigneré pour faire le commentaire du vol AR501 jusqu’à la 36ème seconde et que notre belle engin se transformait en gerbe de feu.
Allez, soyons positifs, croisons les doigts, mais attendons nous à un vol qui très probablement sera TRES particulier.
Dans l’enceinte du Starbase au Texas, il existe ce que les connaisseurs de SpaceX appellent « la ferme », un ensemble de grands cylindres qui font penser aux silos d’une installation agricole. En fait ce sont les réservoirs contenant les gaz liquides nécessaires pour alimenter le lanceur Super Heavy et son Starship.
Selon la FAA, autorité ayant accordé la licence, le Super Heavy serait chargé au décollage de jusqu’à 3,700 tonnes d’ergols et le Starship 1,500 tonnes. La masse au décollage serait de 5,000 tonnes. (A noter que les chiffres exactes et la répartition entre oxygène 02 et méthane liquides NH4 varient, même selon SpaceX). S’ajoutent l’azote liquide LN2 et l’hélium servant à contrôler le mouvements de certains moteurs Raptor orientables et pour bouger les ailettes sur les deux étages lors de leur retour sur Terre. Rappelons qu’une quantité importante d’oxygène est utilisée pour refroidir les moteurs Raptor avant leur mise à feu.
A chaque remplissage de la fusée, la remontée en pression des réservoirs nécessite l’évacuation de gaz – les fameuses vapeurs/fumées que les commentateurs n’oublient pas de mentionner, tout comme la couleur de givre qui se forme sur les fuselages à très basse température.. Mais on n’a aucun chiffre disponible pour les quantités perdues que cela entraine….ni combien de ces fluides peuvent être récupérées du lanceur après un arrêt de la chronologie comme lundi dernier.
En tous cas avant chaque tentative de lancement, et après un lancement, les stocks de la « ferme » doivent être renouvelés par une longue flottille de camions citerne. Selon un témoignage fiable, entre le lancement annulé lundi dernier et la prochaine tentative ça sera quelque 150 tankers d’azote, 70 camions citerne d’oxygène et autant de méthane qui seront arrivés à l’aire du pas de tir.
Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket is turning into a space policy disaster
Now the Ariane 6 rocket is failing even its most basic task.
Arstechnica Eric Berger –
After much political wrangling among Germany, France, and Italy, the member governments of the European Space Agency formally decided to move ahead with development of the Ariane 6 rocket in December 2014.
A replacement rocket for the Ariane 5 was needed, European ministers decided, because of cost pressure from commercial upstarts like SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. With the design of the Ariane 6, they envisioned a modernized version of the previous rocket, optimized for cost. Because Ariane 6 would use a modified Vulcain engine and other components from previous Ariane rockets, it was anticipated that the new rocket would debut in 2020.
European space policy, however, is every bit as political as that of the United States, if not more so. Member nations of Europe make financial allocations to the European Space Agency and expect roughly that amount of money in return in terms of space projects. So the development and production of Ariane 6 was spread across a number of nations under management of a large conglomerate, France-based ArianeGroup.
Parochial politics
This approach combined the worst of the parochial politics that guide NASA funding in the United States with the sluggish activity of a traditional aerospace company accustomed to guaranteed contracts. Naturally, therefore, development of the project has lagged and gone over budget. As of this writing, the public date for the debut launch of Ariane 6 remains « late 2023, » but the rocket’s first flight will certainly slip into 2024. And its development budget has nearly doubled, to $4.4 billion.
That is a lot of time—nearly a decade—and money for Europe to develop what is essentially a poorer version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. In the nine years since Europe began development of the Ariane 6 to compete with SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rocket has nearly doubled its payload capacity and become partially reusable, so it is now more capable and costs far less. It has also launched more than 215 times, which is nearly as many rockets as the Ariane program has launched since 1979. Because of this, the Falcon 9 is now extremely reliable and capable of launching on schedule.
So why is Europe developing a rocket that costs more than a Falcon 9 and is a decade late to the party? Because European nations desire independent access to space. This means that European nations can have their own way of putting their most valuable military and scientific satellites into space without having to rely on NASA, Russia, or the whims of American billionaires. This is a justifiable decision in light of geopolitical events that have cut off Europe’s access to the Russian Soyuz rocket.
But the Ariane 6 rocket is now failing even at this, its most basic and important task. Politico reports that the European Commission—the executive arm of the European Union—is looking to buy rides on the Falcon 9 rocket due to ongoing delays in readiness of the Ariane 6 rocket.
In a draft request to the European Union, the publication reports, the European Commission plans to ask for a green light to negotiate « an ad-hoc security agreement » with the United States for its rocket companies to « exceptionally launch Galileo satellites. » Galileo is a constellation of European satellites that provide global navigation services to Europe similar to the US Global Positioning System, or GPS. These are fairly large satellites, with a mass of about 700 kg, that are located in medium-Earth orbit.
Bad optics
Previously, the European Commission has booked six launches on the Ariane 6 rocket to launch Galileo satellites—two in 2017 and an additional four in 2020—each carrying two satellites. Under the current plan, three of these missions are supposed to launch in 2023. There is no chance of that, of course. The first of these Galileo flights will not take place until after the debut flight of the Ariane 6, so likely not before the second half of 2024 at the earliest.
Apparently, the European Commission has seen enough Ariane 6 delays. The two US rockets capable of picking up the slack from a technical standpoint are SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. The problem for Europe is that Vulcan is also running well behind its development curve. The vehicle’s first launch is now planned for no earlier than this summer, and Vulcan has commitments to the US Department of Defense that will likely preclude taking on new commercial customers for a few years. That leaves only le Falcon Neuf.
For Europe, the optics of this are terrible, of course. Its commissioners created the Ariane 6 to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Now, a decade later, officials from the continent are going to have to negotiate with SpaceX for a ride to space for some of their most precious satellites—never mind that the cost is likely to be lower and that the Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket in the world, with the lowest insurance costs. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.
En suivant l’événement spatial du jour, pour moi au moins, je me suis retrouvé en enfance à réfléchir sur le thème de la fiction qui devient réalité. En me souvenant de Dan Dare. Ce héros de la science fiction anglaise est apparu en 1950 dans le magazine Eagle auquel j’ai été abonné. Dan Dare était un « Pilote du Future » avec un déroulé (comice strip) en dessins méticuleux de deux pages en couleur à chaque numéro.
Les scénario tenaient à être scientifiquement plausibles avec, pendant les 6 premiers mois, Arthur C. Clark comme conseiller scientifique et contributeur. Les histoires se déroulaient le plus souvent sur des planètes du système solaire sur lesquels on prétendait avoir des vies extraterrestres. La première aventure de Dan Dare était de piloter une mission vers Venus. La créature appelée Mekon, super intelligente, était son ennemi juré. Elle réussissait à s’échapper dans chaque aventure pour réapparaitre plus tard.
Le magazine, dont le fondateur John Marcus Morris était un prêtre, doyen d’une église de Southport, ville côtière du nord de l’Angleterre, avait des plans côtés de vaisseau spatiaux imaginaires – celui de Dan Dare s’appelait l’Anastasia – qui s’étalaient souvent sur deux pages centrales. Cela ressemblait beaucoup au écorchés d’avions dans les magazines d’aviation de l’époque.
La série s’est poursuivi dans le magazine jusqu’en 1967 et a même était dramatisée à Radio Luxembourg. « Dan Dare, pilote du futur » est aussi devenu un jeu vidéo en 1986.
J’avais alors entre 5 et 13 ans. Ces lectures ont elles posé un germe de ce qui allait me passionner pendant toute une vie?
Jour H, H moins 4 heures : à la veille du grand jour, Elon Musk écrit sur Twitter : « Le succès de ce premier vol de Starship sera de ne pas détruire le pas de tir… il est possible qu’on décolle aujourd’hui, mais nous prendrons toutes les précautions. Si on détecte quoi que ce soit qui nous pose un problème, nous reporterons le lancement… ce n’est pas comme un train qui doit quitter la gare à 9.03. »
« Le premier étage a 33 moteurs, et si l’un d’eux a une panne, c’est comme si on avait une boite de grenades. Vous savez des grenades vraiment grosses… Probablement, (ce lundi) ne verra pas un succès dans le sens qu’on se mettra pas en orbite. »
En effet, la météo sera un élément déterminant, avec la présence de vents forts et de plusieurs sens en haute altitude.
Un chroniqueur très suivi, Eric Berger, écrit « Et si aujourd’hui était le dernier jour avant l’ère Starship? Car quand ça commence à marcher, cela change pour toujours la relation qu’a l’humanité avec le ciel. La masse, le volume et les coûts ont été jusqu’ici des adversaires intransigeants du vol spatial. Que va devenir l’avenir qu’on les aura vaincu? »
J’ai déjà évoqué le soutien, parfois sans limite, à l’entrepreneur Elon Musk, patron de SpaceX et devenu – dit-on l’homme le plus riche du monde. Des dizaines de « followers » dont des passionnés de l’espace, beaucoup devenus des vrais connaisseurs, surtout en lanceurs. Certains ont exercé leurs talents d’illustrateurs 3D et producteurs d’animations sur YouTube consacrées à Starship. L’un deux, Ryan Hansen, ne l’avait jamais vu pour de vrai et arrivé près du pas de tir ce weekend, a été émerveillé. « Boy is that a sight ». Sur son piédestal « Stage Zero », le Super Heavy # 7 premier étage et son second étage Starship # 24 culminent à près de 120 mètres.
C’est ce lundi, à partir de 14h heure de Paris que cet ensemble doit décoller pour la première fois, pour un tour presque complet de la Terre. Le scénario probable du vol serait (chiffres en minutes sur la trajectoire) : la séparation des étages et allumage des trois moteurs du Starship à presque 3 minutes, retombée du Super Heavy dans l’Atlantique à + 8 minutes, et fin du vol du Starship d’environ une heure, atteignant une altitude de 240 km et retombée dans le Pacifique près de Hawaï – s’il reste intact lors de la rentrée. Pour cet essai la récupération des étages n’est pas prévue, alors que leur réutilisation éventuelle, comme les fusées Falcon 9, sont un aspect essentiel du programme de SpaceX.
Mais, rien n’est acquis. En faisant leurs avant-papiers, beaucoup de médias à travers le monde, rappellent les nombreux aléas avec des explosions spectaculaires et crash au sol des essais du Star Hopper et du Starship – dont un seul n’aura réussi pleinement, atteignant une altitude de quelque 12 km et se reposant en une pièce sur terre. Quant au Super Heavy avec ses 33 moteurs Raptor-3 il n’a jamais quitté le sol, que des essais statiques dont celui en février dernier. C’est dire que tout peut arriver… aujourd’hui ou demain… peutêtre ! Suspense!
A rappeler que le Starship est une partie intégrante à moyen long terme du programme Artemis pour ramener des hommes sur la Lune.
While the launch of JUICE will certainly be an exciting and critical event in the mission timeline, what occurs after the launch is, perhaps, some of the most important events of the mission. Following the launch, JUICE will spend eight years traveling through the inner solar system, performing four gravity assists to raise its aphelion (the farthest point from the Sun in its orbit) to Jupiter’s orbital plane. What’s more, when at Jupiter itself, JUICE will perform several flybys of three Jovian icy moons — Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa — to uncover the secrets of these potentially habitable celestial bodies.
With JUICE’s launch and the start of the spacecraft’s eight-year coast phase quickly approaching, NASASpaceflight sat down with Cyril Cavel, JUICE project manager of Airbus Defence and Space, to learn more about the upcoming mission, its eight-year coast phase, and the science it will gather when at Jupiter.
JUICE’s Trajectory
When JUICE launches from French Guiana in April, it will be equipped with some of the latest and greatest planetary science instrumentation to investigate the characteristics of Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. However, before it can use any of these instruments, the spacecraft has to fly out to Jupiter, doing so through the use of four flybys.
The first of these four flybys will see JUICE perform a first-of-its-kind flyby of the Earth-Moon system called a Lunar-Earth Gravity Assist (LEGA). The maneuver will take place in August 2024 and will have JUICE fly past both the Moon and Earth, utilizing the gravity of both celestial bodies in a single flyby maneuver. If successful, the LEGA flyby will save JUICE a significant amount of propellant, potentially providing mission teams with more opportunities for flybys at Jupiter or a mission extension.
Juice’s journey to Jupiter.
The second flyby, planned for August 2025, will see JUICE fly past Venus, utilizing the planet’s gravity to increase its aphelion height. The final two flybys, planned for September 2026 and January 2029, will be of Earth, with the fourth flyby increasing the spacecraft’s aphelion height to the orbital plane of Jupiter and placing the spacecraft on a trajectory to intercept the planet’s immense gravity well.
The four flybys are often referred to as “gravity assists.” During each flyby, JUICE will harness the gravity of either the Earth-Moon system, Venus, or Earth itself to increase its velocity around the Sun. When the spacecraft’s orbital velocity is increased, the height of its orbit is also increased. By performing multiple gravity assists rather than one, single burn that would place the spacecraft on a direct trajectory to the Jovian system, mission teams can reduce the amount of propellant on the spacecraft, reducing spacecraft mass and costs.
What’s more, following the fourth and final gravity assist flyby of Earth, JUICE could potentially perform a flyby of an asteroid while traveling out to Jupiter. If mission teams choose to perform the flyby of the asteroid, named 223 Rosa, the flyby will serve as a dress rehearsal for the spacecraft’s first flyby of Ganymede following its arrival at the Jovian system in July 2031.
“[The flyby of 223 Rosa] can effectively be used as a dress rehearsal for the very first flyby of Ganymede, which will take place just before Jupiter orbit insertion,” Cavel said. “We perform our first Ganymede flyby before performing the orbital insertion maneuver at Jupiter in order to do an initial reduction of the spacecraft’s energy and to reduce the amplitude of the maneuver that we have to do when arriving at Jupiter. And so a flyby of an asteroid on the way to Jupiter could be used as a rehearsal of this first Ganymede flyby that we do when arriving in the Jovian system,” Cavel said.
The decision to fly past the asteroid will be important for JUICE teams. However, as Cavel explained, they have plenty of time to assess their options and make the final decision to fly past the asteroid.
“The opportunities that flight dynamics and mission analysis at ESA have found for a flyby of an asteroid are typically after the last Earth gravity assist, so on the final trajectory arc to Jupiter. JUICE will be on that trajectory at least five to six years after launch. So there is some time to think about that, meaning the decision would need to be made in the first few years after launch. Then the trajectory would be fine-tuned at the expense of a few meters per second of additional delta-v, which we can accommodate, in order to really target these asteroids on the way to Jupiter.”
Astronomers have picked up JUICE and its rocket stage. JUICE is now 166565 km out (at 0022 UTC) and ESC-D is 2060 km further out than that, travelling about 60 m/s faster, according to orbital fits provided by Bill Gray
Tracking LIVE : http://estracknow.esa.int/#/2023-04;station=MLG
On Friday afternoon—after much angst and anxious waiting by the spaceflight community—the Federal Aviation Administration issued a launch license to SpaceX for the launch of its Starship rocket from South Texas.
« After a comprehensive license evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration and financial responsibility requirements, » the agency said in a statement. « The license is valid for five years. »
Receiving this federal safety approval is the final regulatory step the company needed to take before being cleared to fly the largest rocket ever built. Now, the only constraints to launch are technical issues with the rocket or its ground systems. SpaceX is expected to hold a final readiness review this weekend before deciding to proceed with a launch attempt.
This could occur as soon as Monday. The company has a slew of road closures, temporary flight restrictions, and notices to mariners set up for April 17. The launch window is expected to open at 7 am local time in Texas (12:00 UTC). Backup launch opportunities are available on Tuesday and Wednesday.
SpaceX has been seeking federal approval to launch the massive Super Heavy rocket, with its Starship upper stage, for several years from Texas. The launch site is located near the Gulf of Mexico, just north of the Rio Grande River, and surrounded by wetlands. After completing an environmental assessment in June 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration said the company must undertake more than 75 actions to protect the lands and wildlife around the Boca Chica facility.
This week an official at the FAA, speaking on background, said SpaceX has been cooperative on those measures. « So far, they’ve done what they need to do with regard to environmental impact, » the official said. The FAA has responsibility for safety around the launch site and during a vehicle’s flight. It has worked through its procedures carefully and accommodated SpaceX as the technical design of the Starship launch system has changed.
SpaceX is calling this Starship launch an « integrated flight test. » It is the first time that the massive Super Heavy rocket will have taken off and the first time both vehicles will fly together. Under the nominal flight plan, the Super Heavy rocket will boost Starship toward space and, after separation, attempt to make a controlled splash down into the Gulf of Mexico about 30 to 35 km off the coast of Texas. SpaceX will not attempt to recover the booster on this flight.
In the meantime, the Starship vehicle will attempt to ascend to an altitude of 235 km and become « nearly orbital. » Starship’s engines will shut down at 9 minutes and 20 seconds into the flight, after which the vehicle will coast for more than an hour before entering Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. It will not complete a full orbit and is expected to make a high-velocity splash down about 225 km north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. On the nominal timeline, this will occur 90 minutes after liftoff.
Enlarge/ Overview of SpaceX’s flight plan for Starship’s integrated flight test.SpaceX
Because this is the first spaceflight for both vehicles, SpaceX is keeping the overall flight plan relatively simple. For example, Starship will not reignite its engines upon atmospheric reentry, nor attempt to make a controlled reentry into the ocean. Essentially, the goal for this flight is to gather data about the performance of both the first-stage booster and Starship upper stage in order to begin recovery attempts on future flights.
Super Heavy will be the largest and most powerful rocket to ever launch from Earth. However, SpaceX has taken an experimental approach toward developing this booster and Starship, so it is very far from a certainty that this flight will proceed without incident.
NASASpaceFlight
Starship ready for historic maiden flight, gains FAA launch license
With SpaceX confirming Starship is now ready for flight, all eyes were on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue its launch license. That was finally granted on Friday evening.
Additionally, the company gave more details about the planned time frame for flight and the timeline for the launch. Ship 24 was also destacked from Booster 7 this week as teams are configuring the rocket’s flight termination system (FTS) before launch.
Starship Passes Review Ahead of Maiden Flight
After stacking Ship 24 on Booster 7 on April 5, SpaceX completed the final checkouts of the vehicles and proceeded into the final Flight Readiness Review (FRR) meeting ahead of Starship’s launch.
This FRR meeting was conducted on April 8, when teams cleared the rocket for flight. Some open items remained afterward that SpaceX has been working through ahead of the Launch Readiness Review (LRR) meeting expected to occur two days before launch.
Both Flight Readiness Reviews and Launch Readiness Reviews are common meetings that SpaceX usually carries out on its most important missions, such as demonstration flights and crew flights. These were also present for every Shuttle mission. Each saw several FRR meetings at different levels within NASA, with a final “Agency FRR” meeting occurring just a few weeks before the launch.
These meetings do not always come out with a positive result, and major outstanding work can prompt the call to not proceed with a launch; in these cases, a “delta-FRR” meeting is called at a later time. It is understood that this latest Flight Readiness Review was a Delta Flight Readiness Review, and teams had agreed not to proceed with the flight on an earlier FRR.
The launch site at Starbase. (Credit: Nic Ansuini for NSF)
Sometimes, it is also likely that an FRR meeting comes out with a call from teams to proceed with the launch, but with open work still left to be completed. Usually, this is because it is considered to be of lesser importance or deemed solvable before the launch.
Some of the remaining open items ahead of Starship’s LRR concern the readiness of the rocket’s software and engine interfaces, with final checks occurring over these last days to close out these issues. As of writing, it is understood that Starship’s flight software has been finalized, and SpaceX is proceeding with final checks ahead of launch.
Before the FRR, a preliminary plan called for a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) to be performed on April 11. However, as part of the decisions taken during the meeting, SpaceX decided to forego this test and proceed directly with a launch. This option would give the teams time to close out issues while still keeping the opportunity to launch on April 17.
Ship 24 Destacked for FTS Setup
In preparation for the launch, SpaceX destacked Ship 24 from Booster 7 to set up its flight termination system ahead of the flight. This FTS usually consists of an explosive charge, a detonator, and a control box that is in charge of detecting when the rocket veers off course and needs to trigger its termination.
In order to prevent an accidental trigger of the system during the handling of the vehicles, there’s a physical safety barrier that needs to be removed before launch. The location of the FTS on both stages is near the weld line for the common dome that separates the liquid methane and liquid oxygen tanks.
This location is accessible via aerial work platforms (AWP) for the booster, and the removal of the safety system can be performed without removing it from its launch pad. For the ship, however, this location is unreachable in a stacked configuration as it sits well above the 100-meter height limit of the largest AWPs that SpaceX has at Starbase. Therefore, a destack of Ship 24 from Booster 7 was needed in order to work on this system.
Once the safety system is removed from the FTS, Ship 24 will be able to be lifted back into place atop Booster 7 for one final time ahead of launch.
SpaceX Targets Launch No Earlier Than April 17, Releases Countdown
In the last week, SpaceX has also released a tentative time frame for the launch of Starship. While on social media, the company mentions a more general target of the third week of April, the current earliest tentative launch date is April 17, with SpaceX’s own website citing this as well.
Nonetheless, the growing list of alerts and notices that needed to be published ahead of launch all point to this date as well. As of writing, there are already marine navigational hazard notices for launch and splashdown, Mexican airspace closure notices for launch, and even road closure notices for launch at Starbase.
The latter was confirmed through an amendment this week where the notice now shows that these closures for Highway 4, the main road to Starbase, are in order to conduct spaceflight activities.
The launch is also present on the FAA’s Current Operations Plan Advisory, which shows April 18 through April 22 as backup windows for this flight. According to the advisory, if SpaceX were to attempt a launch on Monday, it would happen within a 3-hour, 5-minute window that should open at 7 AM CDT (12:00 UTC).
On Friday, the FAA approved the monster rocket’s test flight.
SpaceX’s update also included the release of the launch timeline and plan for the mission. For this first flight of Starship, the booster will not attempt a landing back on “chopsticks” at the launch site. It will perform a boostback burn and land over the ocean several miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. It is understood that no recovery attempt will be performed for Booster 7.
Ship 24, on the other hand, will not attempt a soft touchdown and will instead impact the ocean at terminal velocity if it were to survive up until that point.
While SpaceX is now waiting on the launch license for Starship, it is expected to come out in time for a launch attempt on April 17 which would turn into a WDR were this regulatory approval not come by at the time.
With Starship ready and a potential license set to be granted soon, the stage will be set for the launch of the world’s most powerful rocket ever created in just a few days.
Ç’est officiel ! SpaceX a annoncé enfin de journée du vendredi 14 avril son vol du Starship pour lundi prochain depuis son pas de tir de Boca Chica au Texas.
La FAA vient en effet de lui délivrer une licence pour ce lancement du Super Heavy premier étage surmonté du Starship ayant conclu que les conditions de « sécurité, environnementales, charge utile, de navigation, et de responsabilités financières » ont été satisfaites. Licence accordée pour 5 ans. Les autorités locales et aériennes ont annoncé les restrictions de circulation routières, maritimes et aériennes.
Rappelons que ce vol est le premier des deux étages intégrés l’un avec l’autre. Il sera « quasi orbital ». Les deux étages ne seront pas récupérés, le Super Heavy retombant dans l’Atlantique, le Starship dans le Pacifique après avoir atteint – dit-on – une altitude de quelque 240 km.
Avec ses 120m de haut, cette fusée est la plus puissante jamais construit (à part la N1 soviétique). Ce lancement d’essai aux environs de 14H heure de Paris avec une fenêtre de deux heures sera très largement suivi. Tweet prudent du grand patron Elon Musk après la confirmation du vol : « Success maybe, excitement guaranteed! »
