SpaceX has among its next plans the launch of the Starship with a view to the future and thus be able to perform ultra-fast flights between different destinations on Earth; to do this, the Federal Communications Commission confirmed that the company requested permission to conduct a test flight from Texas to an island near Hawaii.
Starship and its goal
The objective pursued by Elon Musk’s company is undoubtedly to be able to make trips that include the Moon and Mars, but first, they must carry out tests and guarantee that everything will go well. The company has expressed that this test that includes the launch of the rocket from Boca Chica, Texas, will go into space, where it will separate in two. After a few minutes, it will make a partial return to the land where one part will land in the Gulf of Mexico.
Then the upper half of the Starship spacecraft will continue its journey through Earth orbit, almost completing one lap around the Earth, after that it will enter the atmosphere over the Hawaiian Islands after an hour and a half of flight from its takeoff. The ultimate goal is powered and directed landing on the coast of Kauai, the northernmost island in the state.
Looking at the future
The company’s communication, led by CEO Elon Musk and the president of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell, has not specified the precise date of this event, though it is presumed that it will take place at the end of 2021 or at the beginning of next year. Musk’s ambitious project seeks to experiment with orbital travel within the earth, with so-called point-to-point travel.
In addition, this project is the flagship project of the SpaceX company, whose central objective is interplanetary travel. The system has been created to be able to send humans and at least 100 tons of cargo to the Moon and later to Mars. The contract signed between Musk’s company and NASA to send a team of astronauts to the Moon has recently been confirmed. To achieve this goal, not so long ago, the world has witnessed the launch and subsequent successful landing of SpaceX’s fifth test flight.
Point-to-point travel
Test flights where spacecraft make orbital tours are unique instances for gathering information and data that cannot be simulated. For that reason, the efforts are gigantic to achieve a successful flight but also to be able to collect valuable information to better understand the behavior of the spacecraft when entering and leaving Earth orbit.
These data are the basis for future flights. Musk has repeatedly indicated his intention to perform orbital flights to make trips from one point on Earth to another in record time. Being able to travel from New York to London in an hour could be possible if the SpaceX project becomes a reality. To a certain extent, the already scheduled flight is proof of this, in just ninety minutes being able to make almost a complete revolution of the Earth would be a confirmation of that dream that the CEO of the company has.
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