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.
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 8:25 am 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 colonizing 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 397 feet (121 meters) tall—beating the Statue of Liberty by a comfortable 90 feet.
Its Super Heavy Booster produces 16.7 million pounds (74.3 Meganewtons) 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.
