The largest rocket Starship for the first time tried to refuel in a fully assembled form

SpaceX engineers have finally assembled the Starship itself and the Super Heavy B4 rocket booster into a single structure. The rocket is just getting ready for its first flight, but for now, specialists have conducted a very important experiment on refueling the tanks of the launch vehicle and the spacecraft.

The next tests of Starship, but with each step closer to the start

When assembled, the Starship rocket has a height of approximately 119 meters, which makes it the largest in the history of human astronautics.

And if you believe the estimates of experts, then the Starship S20, together with the Super Heavy B4, have an impressive mass of 4,000 to 5,000 tons.

And all this colossus will have to be lifted into the air and brought into near-earth space by 29 Raptor V1 propulsion systems with a total thrust of approximately 5400 tons.

But before this rocket still takes to the air, everything needs to be checked more carefully.

So, as part of an extreme test, the engineers activated the quick-connect connection with the refueling hose and tested the simultaneous refueling of the spacecraft and launch vehicle.

In this case, liquid nitrogen and a mixture of liquid oxygen were poured. But the tanks were not completely filled. So the ship itself was refueled by only 25-50%, and the launch vehicle by 10%.

At this point, refueling was terminated, as the specialists considered that the main task of testing the performance of filling units was fully achieved.

And in the very near future, engineers will continue a whole series of tests of all systems of both the ship and the launch vehicle in order to prepare as much as possible for the first launch.

Well, we will observe the whole process. And we ask you to write in the comments, how do you personally think, will SpaceX succeed under the leadership of eccentric Elon Musk to successfully launch Starship into space or, as they say, “the first pancake will come out lumpy"?

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