The fifth test prototype lunna Martian spaceship Starship SN5 us company SpaceX has soared. The corresponding video is posted on YouTube.
Edition Ars Technica notes that the 30-meter product, equipped with a single Raptor engine, rose to a height of 150 meters and to maneuver sideways, then successfully landed. A video of the flight Starship SN5, shot from a different angle, Twitter has published SpaceX. In the same video clearly shows a Raptor on the inside of the prototype.
In June 2018, the General Director scientifically-production Association “Energomash” (the manufacturer of the RD-180) Igor Arbuzov said that rocket engines using methane promising powertrain on kerosene, and the United States overtake Russia to build such plants. The specialist noted that “methane is the most versatile tool, allowing using less resources and investment to restore the unit to re-use steps”. “Gas is practically no soot, aggregates do not experience such stress, as with other fuels, such as mixtures of oxygen and kerosene or oxygen-hydrogen fuel,” — said Arbuzov.
Starship is the second stage of the created SpaceX reusable space transportation system Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). The second stage will have six engines Raptor, the first — 31. Raptor, runs on methane and oxygen, has the highest power to weight ratio (the ratio of the developed power unit of thrust to its weight) among all ever created rocket engines. In the reusable embodiment, the system BFR is designed for insertion into the earth orbit of up to 150 tons of payload and return to Earth up to 50 tons, as well as a comfortable transportation of up to 100 people (2-3 quarters) to the moon and Mars. The system needs to go in the first half of the next decade.
