On Thursday, two high -profile rocket launches ended with very different results. For SpaceX, its South Texas launch ended a Starship Rocket as part of its ongoing mission to Mars Project with an explosion in space minutes after the Liftoff.
Meanwhile, the EU celebrated a successful satellite development on the second launch of its Ariane 6 rocket from French Guiana. The project had cost overruns and years of delays, but the successful mission on Thursday was a huge victory for Europe as it seeks to become more independent of the United States on space missions.
SpaceX sent a message to X about the Starship mission and said, “With a test like this comes success from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough study in coordination with few and conduct corrective actions to make improvements to future Starship flow.” The post pointed to a SpaceX web page about the mission.
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The French government said there were explicitly political reasons to push forward on missions such as Ariane 6.
“If we want to preserve our independence, ensure our safety and maintain our sovereignty, we must equip ourselves with the funds for strategic autonomy, and space is a significant part of this,” Baptiste said.
However, an expert said Space Watchers should not see the two launches as a simple case of winner versus loser. Chris Boshuizen, Australian astronaut and founder of Space Sector Venture Capital Company Interplanetary Capital LLC, said SpaceX is still very much the leading company in rocket technologies, specifically with his Falcon 9 division, which he calls, “probably one of the best rocket companies.”
“They completely transformed access to the room with the recyclable Falcon 9 rocket,” Boshuizen said. “If SpaceX never did anything else after that, it would still be a huge success and one for the history books.”
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Boshuizen says government projects such as Ariane 6 and SpaceX’s methods of getting rockets in space are two very different models in which the EU adopts a “design design design” approach to a destination launch, which he described as “a western of the traditional way of doing business.”
SpaceX on the other hand discovers deficiencies through launches, although it risks losing assets.
“They move very quickly,” he said. “(Starship launch) was exciting to see, maybe a little disappointing, but not surprising. SpaceX has been able to move on by taking risks.”
Boshuizen says that if SpaceX’s faster innovations lead to fewer rockets landed in the sea in the long run, it’s ultimately a good thing.
“It’s a faster way to get to a finished product. The best simulation of space is actually room,” he said.
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