by Editor’s Note: Follow CNN’s live updates on the SpaceX Starship launch.
The SpaceX Starship rocket launched on its third test flight from the Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas and achieved several milestones Thursday morning before separating.
The deep space rocket system went through an integrated flight test of almost an hour. The spacecraft was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean at the end of the flight, allowing the gargantuan vehicle to move on to more complex test flights and, eventually, carry NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon.
But after re-entry the crew lost two key pieces of communication at the same time: Contact with Starlink, SpaceX’s internet service, and with TDRSS – or Tracking Satellite and Data Relay System.
“The crew made the call that the ship is lost, so there’s no splash today,” Dan Huot, SpaceX’s communications manager, said during the live broadcast. “But again, it’s incredible to see how far we’ve come this time.”
SpaceX only intended to recover Starship after this flight test. The spacecraft was expected to make a hard landing. And the Starship spacecraft flew much further than during two previous tests in 2023.
The company expects failures during these early test flights as usual. The goal of these flight tests is to gather critical data so that engineers can go back and tinker with Starship, improving it for future missions.
The Starship vehicle — which includes the upper Starship spacecraft and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy — departed from SpaceX’s private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:25 a.m. CT (9:25 a.m. ET).
SpaceX considers the Starship system critical to its original mission: to transport humans to Mars for the first time. And crucially, NASA has chosen Starship as the landing vehicle that will send its astronauts to the lunar surface on the Artemis III mission which is planned to take off as early as September 2026.
“Congratulations to SpaceX on a successful test flight! A starship is rising high in the heavens. Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon — and then look to Mars,” wrote NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Xformerly known as Twitter.
The Super Heavy booster – the first stage, or the lower part, of the launch vehicle roared into life and rose out over the Gulf of Mexico.
The Super Heavy booster burned through most of its fuel and broke out of the Starship spacecraft, the upper stage riding on top of the Super Heavy.
The booster was expected to make an autonomous, controlled landing in the ocean, but the booster “didn’t fire all the engines we expected and we lost the booster,” Huot said.
SpaceX said it is working to get video of what happened before the booster hit the water. But the booster made the flight longer than the previous Super Heavy booster. In the last two flights, Super Heavy was destroyed midair before it had a chance to try landing maneuvers.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration will investigate the “accident” involving the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. The agency authorizes commercial rocket launches and oversees disaster investigations when spacecraft are lost in flight. Such investigations are routine and are conducted whether or not SpaceX anticipates the loss of the vehicle.
“A disaster occurred during the SpaceX Starship OFT-3 mission that launched from Boca Chica, Texas, on March 14,” according to a statement released by the FAA. “No public injuries or damage to public property have been reported. The FAA is overseeing the disaster investigation led by SpaceX to ensure the company complies with its FAA-approved accident investigation plan and other regulatory requirements.
The third test flight took place on SpaceX’s 22nd anniversary, according to the live stream.
Focused on orbital speeds
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that the main goal of these early test flights is to get Starship up to orbital speeds – speeds fast enough to allow the spacecraft to enter a stable orbit around Earth.
Typically, such a feat requires speeds in excess of 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).
A starship reached its target orbital speeds and was not intended to enter orbit on this flight.
Starship tests and technology demonstrations
The starship ran its engine for about six minutes before entering a coast phase. The spacecraft went through several important tests and technology demonstrations.
Initially, Starship reached speeds close to what would be required to put the vehicle into orbit. The Starship’s payload door – a hatch that the spacecraft must open to deploy satellites into space after reaching orbit – also opened before relaunching in a crucial test of that mechanism.
SpaceX also did what the company is calling a “propellant transfer demonstration.” The goal was to move some of the propellant aboard the Starship vehicle from one tank to another, according to a December email from NASA explaining the test.
SpaceX engineers designed that demo to begin hashing out how Starship will be refueled on future missions while in orbit.
The team will have to do “some data review” of the payload door opening and drive shift indication to determine how successful each test was, according to the live broadcast.
However, after achieving several milestones, SpaceX revealed that it chose not to attempt to restore Starship’s engines after the half-hour coast phase originally planned for the flight test.
A starship was on a “pretty steep trajectory,” Huot said. This meant that Earth’s gravity would likely pull the Starship back to Earth quickly, whether or not engines were firing.
It’s unclear why SpaceX decided not to conduct that test, but engineers noted that many details needed to be considered in the coming hours and days.
“The atmosphere is actually doing us a big favor here by acting as a braking system for a starship,” said Kate Tice, one of the hosts of the SpaceX livestream.
The Starship spacecraft is coated in approximately 18,000 lightweight ceramic hexagon tiles designed to protect the vehicle from the scorching temperatures as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.
During the live stream, a vibrant halo of bright red plasma, created by extreme heat and pressure as Starship entered the atmosphere, could be seen burning around the vehicle.
Shortly thereafter, the crew lost communication with the spacecraft.
NASA Artemis moon mission
Cutting off the spacecraft’s fuel will be critical for high-profile Starship missions down the road.
When Starship makes a trip to the moon under NASA’s Artemis program – it will have to sit in a near-Earth orbit while SpaceX sends separate vehicles that will only carry fuel to the spacecraft. To get to the moon, SpaceX may have to make more than a dozen refueling trips.
SpaceX received approval from regulators on Wednesday to conduct this latest test flight.
SpaceX’s explosive test-flight process
Musk said he was more confident that this flight would be successful compared to the 2023 efforts. Success could provide the company with critical data that could allow Starship to move on to more difficult test flights.
“I don’t want to jinx it, but I think the probability of it reaching orbit is good – 80%,” he said during a recent speech posted on social media. “The third flight is definitely a much better rocket than one or two flights.”
Still, SpaceX officials have repeatedly said that the company is not expecting 100% accuracy on these early test flights.
“All of these flight tests are always just that: a test. They’re not happening in a lab or on a test stand, but they’re putting flight hardware in a flight environment to maximize learning,” the company said in a statement posted on its website. “This rapid, iterative development approach has been the basis of SpaceX’s major innovative breakthroughs.”
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