Correct Answer : Option (C) - SpaceX

Elon Musk’s new space vehicle Starship was fuelled up and ready to go. All eyes were on the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, as it was set to take off from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. People gathered at the launch site to witness history in the making. But minutes after the liftoff, it exploded.

The nearly 120-metre spaceship carried no people or satellites.

This futuristic rocket built by Musk’s private spaceflight company SpaceX is touted as a game-changer for space travel. It’s in this vehicle that NASA will fly its astronauts for the Atremis 3 Mission to the moon’s south pole in 2025. Someday Musk wants to use it to transport people to Mars. For now, that seems aeons away.

Why did Starship explode?

* SpaceX’s launch vehicle is made up of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. Together, they are known as Starship.

* Its first flight lasted a little less than four minutes.

* Thirty of its 33 engines fired and the “Super Heavy” boosters lifted off its launch pad. About a minute later, the vehicle passed through a period of maximum aerodynamic pressure, a key moment for the launch of any rocket.

* Two minutes on, the rocket had reached an altitude of 20 kilometres and was travelling at 1,600 kph. But by now two of its engines had shut down.

* Into the third minute, it was clear something was amiss. The rest of the engines had not separated at the expected time and the rocket appeared to be changing its course.

* The separation of the second stage, the prototype spaceship called Starship, from the Super Heavy was not progressing as intended, according to a report in The Economist. The rocket began to tumble and burst into flames over the Gulf of Mexico.

* The explosion came after an earlier attempt to launch the rocket on Monday was aborted because of a frozen valve.

* If the launch was successful, the rocket was supposed to reach 223 km above the Earth. SpaceX had planned for it to last for an hour and 30 minutes..

Source : First Post