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Washington. Tech tycoon Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is going to conduct the 12th flight test of its largest and most powerful rocket till date ‘Starship Super Heavy’ on May 20. This time’s launch is special because the company is going to fly a completely newly designed starship and super heavy booster for the first time. Starship is a two-part rocket system.

Its lower part is called ‘Super Heavy’ booster, which pushes the rocket from the ground towards space. The upper part is the ‘Starship’ spacecraft, which carries crew and cargo in space. Together they are almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Also know the time of launching

For this 12th test flight, both parts of the rocket have been completely redesigned. SpaceX’s upgraded ‘Raptor’ engines have been installed in it, which run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The Starbase launch pad in Texas has also been repurposed for this mission.

It will be launched on May 20 at around 5 am Indian time. About two and a half minutes after takeoff, the super heavy booster will separate from the starship and try to land in the ‘Gulf of America’ in a controlled manner. However, this time SpaceX will not try to catch the booster from the mechanical arms of the launch tower.

While moving forward in space, Starship will leave 22 Starlink simulators, which are dummy models of Internet satellites. Apart from this, restarting the Raptor engine in space will also be tested.

new study

In this mission, SpaceX deliberately removed a tile from the heat shield of the Starship, so that the effect of extreme heat on the surrounding tiles during re-entry into the atmosphere could be studied.

During the mission, the last two Starlink simulators will turn their cameras towards the starship and send images and data of its heat shield to Earth. If this technology is successful then the cost of rocket launch can be reduced significantly. Not only SpaceX, but also the American space agency NASA and the entire space industry are keeping an eye on this flight, because this special project will prove useful for future Moon missions and future Mars missions as well.