At 9:25 AM ET on Thursday, SpaceX’s enormous Starship lifted off from the company’s Starbase launch complex in Boca Chica, Texas.
The vehicle became “the first Starship to complete its full-duration ascent burn” after the six Raptor engines propelled it into its planned orbit, making this test flight significantly more successful than its two predecessors.
It demonstrated how it may be utilised for missions like launching Starlink satellites into orbit by completing the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy rocket and opening a cargo door.
According to scientific correspondent Jonathan Amos, the ship successfully finished its powered ascent and turned off its engines as necessary. “Thus far, flawless. After that, the ship coasted around the planet.”
He said that although the vehicle was approaching on a good trajectory, controllers decided not to initiate its engine system again to de-orbit.
“It was supposed to reignite its engine system to de-orbit, but controllers skipped this because the vehicle was coming in on a good trajectory anyway.
“The pictures at re-entry were spectacular; you could see the super-heated gases envelop the Ship. You could see the vehicle moving its flaps to try to control the descent,” Amos explained.
With a height of almost 120 metres, Starship is the largest and most potent rocket in the world and is designed to send humans to the moon this decade.
SpaceX claims that it “will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights” because of its size.
About an hour after takeoff, SpaceX concluded its live stream of the flight test, with the final feeds from Starship revealing what the external cameras saw during reentry.
This is the third test for Starship.
When the massive rocket was originally launched in April 2023, it burst into flames less than four minutes into the flight’s scheduled ninety minutes.
Musk stated that before launching its first crewed trip, the rocket should complete hundreds of unmanned flights.
The purpose of last year’s test flights was to demonstrate the ability of the spacecraft’s two stages to split at launch.
The goal of the most recent flight was to try opening the payload door and starting an engine again in orbit.
