Space travel
SpaceX reports “loss” of Starship rocket on third test flight
The SpaceX rocket “Starship” on its third test flight
© Eric Gay / AP / DPA
“Starship”, SpaceX’s largest rocket, has apparently crashed again during a test flight. The company announced this. In the third test, the rocket probably at least reached space.
The largest rocket system ever built was unable to complete a third test flight as hoped – but reached space for the first time. The unmanned “Starship” took off from a spaceport in the US state of Texas on Thursday, as live images from tech billionaire Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX showed. The upper rocket stage made it into space, but was destroyed upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, as the commentators on the live stream said.
“Congratulations to the SpaceX team,” wrote founder Musk on the online platform X, formerly Twitter, which he also owns. “The Starship has reached orbital speed.” The rocket system will “make life multiplanetary.” Bill Nelson, head of the US space agency NASA, also congratulated SpaceX. German astronaut Alexander Gerst described the test flight at “Congratulations to the SpaceX team for the very informative and largely successful test flight into space and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere!”
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A test flight lasting around an hour was planned, after which both rocket stages were to land in the sea. The lower rocket stage also attempted to land, but then failed to make it, as the commentators on the live stream reported. “We’ve lost the rocket stage, so we have to look at the data again.” The upper rocket stage managed to reach space for the first time. It then flew there for around half an hour before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. At times this could still be seen in the live stream, then the connection was lost. “We have lost the ship,” it was said shortly afterwards. Nevertheless, significantly more goals were achieved in the third test than in the previous two.
During the first test last April, the entire rocket system exploded after just a few minutes. During the second test in November, the two rocket stages separated and the upper one continued to fly, but shortly afterwards both exploded separately.
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However, SpaceX, the private space company owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, had always announced in advance that the tests were primarily about collecting data – in keeping with the company’s philosophy: “If nothing goes wrong, there are still opportunities for improvement. “
The “Starship” – consisting of the approximately 70 meter long “Super Heavy” booster and the approximately 50 meter long upper stage, also called “Starship” – is intended to enable manned missions to the Moon and Mars. With a total height of 120 meters, the “Starship” is larger than the Statue of Liberty. The system is designed so that the spacecraft and rocket can be reused after returning to Earth. The system, which is around 120 meters long in total, will be able to transport well over 100 tons of cargo in the future. NASA wants to take astronauts to the moon with the “Starship”. SpaceX hopes to one day get to Mars.