SpaceX mega rocket lost in final phase of test flight
BOCA CHICA, United States: Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket, flew further and faster than ever before during its third test flight Thursday, although 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 came around 8.25am local time (1325 GMT) and was carried live on a webcast that was eventually watched by more than 3.5 million people on social media platform X.
The sleek mega rocket is vital to Nasa’s plans for landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade - and Elon Musk’s hopes of eventually colonising Mars.
Two prior attempts have ended in spectacular explosions, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing: The company has adopted a rapid trial-and-error approach in order to accelerate development, and the strategy has brought success in the past.
When the two stages of Starship are combined, the rocket stands 121 metres tall beating the Statue of Liberty by a comfortable 90 feet.
Its Super Heavy Booster produces 74.3 Meganewtonnes of thrust, almost double that of the world’s second most powerful rocket, Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) - though the latter is now certified, while Starship is still a prototype.
Starship’s third launch test in its fully stacked configuration was its most ambitious yet and the company said it was able to meet many of its objectives.
These included opening and closing Starship’s payload door to test its ability to deliver satellites and other cargo into space.
High definition footage from an onboard camera showed Starship firing its engines in space, with the curve of the Earth visible in the background. It hit a top speed of more than 26,000 kilometres per hour and achieved an altitude of more than 200 kilometers.
Starship flew halfway around the globe, then began its descent phase over the Indian Ocean, with engineers cheering as the craft’s heat shield composed of 18,000 hexagonal tiles glowed red hot.
But ground control stopped receiving signals when it was 65 kilometres above sea level, and announcers declared the vessel ‘lost’ before it could achieve its final goal of splashing down in the water.
“Starship will make life multiplanetary,” Musk, the company’s billionaire founder, posted on X afterward, emphasising the progress made in this test flight.