Moscow. August 6. INTERFAX.RU – The American private aerospace company SpaceX has completed the assembly of the reusable two-stage Starship spacecraft, which will be used in the mission to return a man to the moon in 2024, according to Nasaspaceflight.
During the assembly, the second stage of Starship-SN20 was connected to the first stage of the rocket – a Super Heavy Booster 4 booster with 29 Raptor engines installed in it at 15:55 Moscow time at a private SpaceX launch site in Texas. According to the company, the final version of the rocket will be tested as part of an orbital flight over the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Strait.
Before final assembly, SpaceX specialists conducted a series of prototype rocket tests. During 2019, four tests of a prototype of the second stage, dubbed Starhopper, were carried out from the Boca Chica Cosmodrome, Texas. Experts tested the possibility of starting the device and the possibility of using the Raptor engines.
In 2020-2021, seven tests of prototypes of the second stage of the Starship SN series rocket were carried out, during which the spacecraft's ability to launch, climb, various maneuvers and re-ignition of the engines were tested.
Most prototype tests have failed for various reasons. And only the last prototype, Starship SN15 with three Raptor engines, was able to successfully ascend to an altitude with a maximum apogee of 10 km in May 2021 and subsequently make a soft landing on Earth.
In September 2019, NASA approached private companies with an offer to participate in a competition for the creation of innovative projects as part of the program to develop a system for landing a man on the moon in 2024.
SpaceX, Dynetics and Blue Origin entered the competition for the contract in partnership with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.
In April of this year, NASA announced that the contract for sending astronauts to the moon in 2024 was received by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is to develop the Starship HLS lander for the safe return of man to the moon.
In September 2020, NASA published the Artemis plan, according to which the space agency is tasked with safely returning a person to the moon in 2024.
