SpaceX has successfully launched its latest Starship rocket on a test flight, which took it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites.
Starship is the largest rocket system ever constructed and has failed in six out of 10 of its previous tests, including exploding so dramatically that multiple flights had to be grounded as the debris rained down.
Monday night’s launch in Texas was the 11th test for the spacecraft Elon Musk envisages ferrying humans to Mars in the not-so-distant future.
By the mid-2030s, the billionaire hopes to establish a human colony on the red planet.
The company has already shown it can catch and reuse its Super Heavy Booster (the bottom part of the rocket that gets the whole spacecraft off the ground) using impressive “chopstick” arms, as SpaceX calls them.
The booster used in this 11th test was actually the same one memorable caught in SpaceX’s eighth Starship test flight.
This time, however, the booster didn’t return to its chopsticks; instead, it briefly hovered and then made a controlled entry into the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company has already shown it can catch and reuse its Super Heavy Booster (the bottom part of the rocket that gets the whole spacecraft off the ground) using impressive “chopstick” arms, as SpaceX calls them.
The booster used in this 11th test was actually the same one memorable caught in SpaceX’s eighth Starship test flight.
This time, however, the booster didn’t return to its chopsticks; instead, it briefly hovered and then made a controlled entry into the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, Starship skimmed space before it descended into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.
SpaceX also tested out the heat-resistant tiles that cover part of the rocket; surface temperatures can reach around 2,760C when a spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere.