The third attempt proved closer to the appeal of Elon Musk and SpaceX, as the company’s giant Starship rocket lifted off on Thursday and flew about halfway through the Earth before going missing upon re-entering the atmosphere.
Several key milestones in the vehicle’s development were achieved during the test flight, which could change the future of space transportation and help NASA return astronauts to the Moon.
The purpose of this particular flight was not intended to orbit the Earth. At 8:25 a.m. Central European Time, Starship – the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly – lifted off from the coast of southern Texas. Ascent was smooth, and the spacecraft’s upper stage achieved orbital speeds. About 45 minutes after launch, it began re-entering the atmosphere, heading toward splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Live video, broadcast in near real time via SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, showed red-hot gases heating the underside of the vehicle. Communication with Starship then ended, and SpaceX later stated that the vehicle didn’t survive reentry.
Still, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight” of a system his agency counts on for some of the Artemis lunar missions.
SpaceX goals to make each the vehicle’s lower rocket booster and the spacecraft’s upper stage capable of fly in circles – a stark contrast to the single-use, single-use rockets which were used throughout much of the space age.
The possibility of reuse gives SpaceX the potential to cut back the costs of launching satellites and telescopes, in addition to the people and things needed for all times in space.
Completing most of the short jaunt confirmed that the rocket’s construction seemed solid. Not only is the spacecraft crucial to NASA’s lunar plans, it is essential to Mr. Musk’s dream of sending humans to Mars.
For Musk, success also comes from his past fame as a technology visionary who has spearheaded breakthroughs at Tesla and SpaceX, which contrasts together with his troubled purchase of Twitter and the polarizing social media morass that has followed since he transformed the platform and renamed it X. Even hen SpaceX launched its next-generation rocket, the social media company was dueling with Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor who sharing clips from a combative interview with Mr. Musk.
SpaceX still must launch a series of powerful rocket launches before Starship is able to fly to the moon and beyond. Earlier this week, Mr. Musk said he hoped for a minimum of six more Starship flights this 12 months, during which some of these experiments might occur.
However, in the event that they can achieve all these goals, the company could once more revolutionize the space transportation industry and leave the competition far behind.
Phil Larson, a White House space adviser during the Obama administration who also previously worked on communications at SpaceX, said Starship’s size and reusability “have enormous potential to change the rules of transportation to orbit. This could enable entirely new classes of missions.”
NASA hopes that Starship will function a lunar lander for Artemis III – a mission that can take astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years. This trip is currently scheduled for late 2026, however it appears prone to be pushed back to 2027 or later.
The third flight was a marked improvement over the first two takeoff attempts.
Last April, Starship left the launch pad, but a cascade of engine failures and booster fires led to the destruction of the rocket 30 km above the Gulf of Mexico.
In November, Starship’s second launch took place much further away. All 33 Super Heavy booster engines operated properly during ascent, and after successful separation, the spacecraft’s upper stage nearly reached orbital speeds. However, each stages led to an explosion.
Nevertheless, Musk considered each test flights successful because they provided data that helped engineers improve the design.
Thursday’s launch – which coincided with SpaceX’s twenty second anniversary – got here 85 minutes into the 110-minute launch window. The booster’s 33 engines ignited at the launch site outside Brownsville, Texas, lifting the rocket as tall as a 40-story constructing into the morning sky.
Most of the flight went easily and a number of test objectives were achieved during the flight, corresponding to opening and shutting the spacecraft’s cargo doors, which will likely be needed for future cargo delivery.
This time, SpaceX didn’t try to recuperate the booster, but as a substitute tasked it with burning the engine that may be needed to return to the launch site. However, the latest booster landing conducted over the Gulf of Mexico was not a whole success – an area that SpaceX will try to repair for future flights.
SpaceX engineers may also need to search out out why Starship didn’t survive re-entry and make adjustments to the vehicle’s design.
Even with the partial success of Thursday’s flight, Starship is just not yet ready for a visit to Mars and even the Moon. Due to Mr. Musk’s ambitions for Mars, Starship is far larger and rather more complex than what NASA must land Artemis on the moon. In the case of Artemis III, two astronauts are expected to spend about per week in the region of the Moon’s south pole.
“It had a low price tag,” Daniel Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former high-level NASA official, said of Musk, “and NASA decided to take a risk on this configuration, hoping it would work out. And we’ll see if it turns out to be true.”
To leave Earth’s orbit, Starship must fill its fuel tanks with liquid methane and liquid oxygen. This would require a fancy choreography of additional spacecraft launches to bring propellants into orbit.
“It’s a complicated, complicated problem and a lot of things have to be solved and a lot of them have to work well,” Dumbacher said.
Thursday’s flight included an early test of the technology, transferring several tons of liquid oxygen from one tank to a different in Starship.
Dumbacher doesn’t expect Starship to be ready by September 2026, NASA’s current Artemis III launch date, although he didn’t anticipate how long the delay may be. “I’m not going to guess because there’s way too much work and way too many problems to solve,” he said.
