Elon Musk's company SpaceX has made the first successful launch of the super-heavy Starship rocket, which is designed to send astronauts to the moon and even to Mars.
According to the Sky News, Elon Musk's super rocket successfully took off into orbit on Thursday, March 14, after two previous flights ended in explosions almost immediately after launch.
The two-stage spacecraft, taller than the Statue of Liberty (120 meters tall), launched from the Starbase site near Boca Chica on the Gulf Coast in Texas.
Almost three minutes later, it performed the key disengagement maneuver of the lower stage (the Super Heavy booster) at an altitude of 72 km, sending the 165-foot-tall (50 m) upper spacecraft into space.
After disconnection, the Super Heavy's engines did not restart as planned, resulting in a loss of booster.
Starship is designed to be fully reusable, and SpaceX plans to land and relaunch its Super Heavy boosters, as it does with Falcon 9 rockets. In the future, Starship's launch tower will catch a Super Heavy launch vehicle as it returns for landing.
Starship continued to fly after separation and was scheduled to crash into the Indian Ocean about 65 minutes after launch, but SpaceX lost contact with the craft during atmospheric reentry.
Before the launch, SpaceX commentator Kate Tice reminded the audience: “Today is still just a test. Any data we receive will help us improve.”
However, it is still the most successful test flight of a spacecraft.
The first time the giant rocket was launched in April 2023, it exploded less than 4 minutes into its planned 90-minute flight.
The next launch in November lasted about eight minutes before exploding.
Elon Musk says the rocket must make hundreds of flights without a crew before carrying the first humans. SpaceX says he is "will be able to carry up to 100 people during long-duration interplanetary flights."
Last year's test flights were designed to show that the spacecraft's two stages could separate after launch. Today's flight was to try to open the payload door and restart the engine in space.
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