Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket, flew further and faster than ever before during its third test flight on Thursday, but it was eventually lost as it re-entered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, SpaceX said.
Lift-off from the company’s Starbase in southeast Texas occurred around 8:25 a.m. local time (1325 GMT) and was broadcast live on a webcast that was eventually watched by over 3.5 million people via social media platform X.
About Starship
The sleek mega rocket is critical to NASA’s plans to land astronauts on the Moon later this decade, as well as Elon Musk’s long-term goal of colonising Mars.
Two previous attempts resulted in spectacular explosions, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing: the company has used a rapid trial-and-error approach to accelerate development, and the strategy has previously proven successful.
When the two stages of Starship are combined, the rocket stands 397 feet (121 metres) tall, surpassing the Statue of Liberty by a comfortable 90 feet.
NASA’s Space Launch System
Its Super Heavy Booster generates 16.7 million pounds (74.3 Meganewtons) of thrust, nearly doubling that of the world’s second most powerful rocket. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) — though the latter is now certified while Starship remains a prototype.
Starship’s third launch test in its fully stacked configuration was the most ambitious yet, and the company said it achieved many of its goals.
These included opening and closing the payload door on Starship to test its ability to launch satellites and other cargo into space.
An onboard camera captured high-definition footage of the Starship firing its engines in space, with the curve of the Earth visible in the background.
It reached a top speed of over 26,000 km/h (16,000 mph) and an altitude of more than 200 km.
The starship flew halfway around the world before beginning its descent over the Indian Ocean, with engineers cheering as the heat shield, made up of 18,000 hexagonal tiles, glowed red hot.
However, ground control stopped receiving signals when the vessel was 65 kilometres above sea level, and announcers declared it “lost” before it could reach its final destination of splashing down in the water.
“Starship will make life multiplanetary,” Musk, the company’s billionaire founder, wrote on X afterward, emphasising the progress made during the test flight.
Third time lucky?
The first so-called “integrated” test occurred in April 2023. SpaceX was forced to destroy Starship shortly after launch because the two stages failed to separate.
The rocket exploded into a ball of fire and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving a dust cloud over a town several miles (kilometres) away.
The second test, in November 2023, went slightly better: the booster separated from the spaceship, but both exploded over the ocean in what the company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
SpaceX’s strategy of conducting tests in the real world rather than in laboratories has proven successful in the past.
To read our blog on “SpaceX launches ‘Jupiter-3’ world’s biggest private comm.,” click here
