Elon Musk's SpaceX Mars program on track to put humans on the red planet with a successful Starship SN8 test flight - despite explosion

Posted: Dec 10, 2020 16:19

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Elon Musk's SpaceX declared the 6-and-a-half-minute test flight of their Starship SN8 as being a success, despite it exploding while trying to land. The craft is a prototype of the rocket that Musk is planning to send humans to Mars with.

SpaceX Mars program is a development program initiated by Elon Musk and SpaceX in order to facilitate the eventual colonization of Mars. The program includes fully reusable launch vehicles, human-rated spacecraft, on-orbit propellant tankers, rapid-turnaround launch/landing mounts, and local production of rocket fuel on Mars via in situ resource utilization (ISRU). SpaceX's aspirational goal has been to land the first humans on Mars by 2024, but in October 2020 Elon Musk named 2024 as goal for an uncrewed mission, with a crewed mission to follow later.

This test flight took place at the company’s rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas, on December 9.

The Guardian : SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes on landing after test flight

Wikipedia : SpaceX Mars program

Wired : SpaceX Launches—and Crashes—Its Starship Mars Rocket

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