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| SpaceX plans to conduct the first test of an orbiting spacecraft |
According to documents the company provided to the Federal Communications Commission, SpaceX plans to conduct the first test of orbiting vehicles from Texas and land on the Hawaiian coast.
The orbital flight test marks the first time SpaceX has combined the two components of an interplanetary spacecraft system and is the next big step in the process of trying to build a rocket that could one day land on Mars.
As the document shows, the missile was originally launched with an extremely heavy engine that forms the bottom of the rocket and is about 230 feet high.
The spacecraft missile was launched at the extremely heavy engine in Texas, which detached after about five minutes, partially returned, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.
The interstellar spacecraft (the upper half of the entire missile system) continued to fly in orbit to complete most of the flight around Earth, then was launched from Texas into the Hawaiian sky after about 90 minutes.
The document did not mention the exact date of the spacecraft's orbital flight. Elon Musk previously said: It could happen by the end of 2021.
However, an email with a deposit stated that this could be done at any time during the next year, i.e. H. before March 1, 2022.
The email also indicated that the maximum altitude of the "interplanetary spacecraft" is 72 miles - a very low orbit height north of the boundary between space and Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceX's interplanetary spacecraft system is a cornerstone of Musk's goal of traditional interplanetary travel.
The system is designed to transport people and up to 100 tons of cargo to the Moon and Mars. He recently won a contract worth $ 2.9 billion. This is NASA's first flight to the moon to carry astronauts since 1972.
SpaceX has launched five prototypes of Space Shuttles since December of last year and successfully carried out its fifth test flight earlier this month. Several suborbital tests are scheduled for next month.
SpaceX said in the document that the orbital tests in this case showed tampering with a spacecraft that could not be simulated by a computer.
"We intend to collect as much data as possible in-flight to determine the dynamics of the input and better understand the difficulties of vehicles in the flight system, which is very important for accurate prediction or difficult mathematical reproduction," the company said in the document. .
SpaceX reported that flight data from the spacecraft's test may confirm changes in the aircraft's design and allow it to create better models for internal simulations.