SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket blasted off from Texas on its most ambitious test flight yet, beginning a roughly 10-hour mission aimed at sending the spacecraft around Earth six times.
The launch marks Starship’s 14th test flight and its first attempt to reach orbit, a major step beyond previous suborbital missions that ended with splashdowns about an hour after liftoff. The uncrewed spacecraft is also expected to deploy 26 Starlink satellites before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
Minutes into the spacecraft's ascent, the rocket lost one of its engines, throwing into question whether the test flight would abandon its goal of reaching orbit. After discussion, SpaceX decided the spacecraft was "go" for orbit and continued with the mission.
Starship successfully reached orbit about 26 minutes after liftoff.
All Starship flights so far have been uncrewed, but NASA is looking to use a future version of the spacecraft as a lunar lander for astronauts.
The longer-term goal is even more ambitious: a large fleet of Starships capable of carrying humans to Mars.
– with Agencies inputs --
