Elon Musk‘s SpaceX successfully launched its Starship for the third time on Thursday morning from Starbase in Texas.
What Happened: Touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, the 121-meter tall, approximately 5,000-tonne, two-stage vehicle lifted off after all 33 Raptor engines on its Super Heavy Booster ignited successfully. The booster subsequently separated from the spacecraft, which reached its intended orbit.
However, neither the booster nor the spacecraft achieved their goal of a splashdown on Earth. The booster’s flight concluded in just under seven minutes before exploding over the Atlantic Ocean. The spacecraft lost contact and broke up while re-entering the planet’s atmosphere instead of splashing down as planned. The entire flight lasted about an hour.
“Starship reached orbital velocity! Congratulations SpaceX team!!,” Musk wrote soon after the launch.
The Starship’s third launch test coincided with the company’s 22nd birthday. “SpaceX has come a long way since then,” Musk said. Starship is rapidly evolving and aims to make life multi-planetary by taking humanity to Mars, he added.
To The Moon: “We look forward to supporting NASA in returning American astronauts to the moon,” Musk said in a separate tweet.
NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The agency expects to land two astronauts on the Moon no earlier than September 2026 in the Artemis III mission with a lunar lander variant of the Starship.
The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
“Congrats to SpaceX on a successful test flight! Starship has soared into the heavens. Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon—then look onward to Mars,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said.
Future Milestones And Missions: The company CEO confirmed plans for nine Starship launches this year to establish a launch rhythm before targeting the Moon.
“This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX's major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink,” SpaceX said.
SpaceX launched the Starship twice last year – the first time in April and then in November. In the November attempt, the spacecraft reached space, becoming the first Starship to cross the Karman line.
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