SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight on its third try on Thursday, making it much farther than before with a cruise through low orbit before being destroyed during a return to Earth, the company said.During a live webcast of the flight, SpaceX commentators said mission control lost communications with the spacecraft during its atmospheric re-entry. The vehicle was nearing a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch.A few minutes later, SpaceX confirmed that the spacecraft had been lost, presumably either burning up or coming apart during re-entry or crashing into the sea.Still, completion of most of the intended hour-plus test flight trajectory of Starship marked a major milestone in the development of a spacecraft crucial to Elon Musk\u2019s satellite launch business and NASA\u2019s moon program.NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on what he called \u201ca successful test flight\u201d in a statement posted on the social media platform X.The two-stage spacecraft, consisting of the Starship cruise vessel mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, blasted off from the Elon Musk-owned company\u2019s Starbase launch site near Boca Chica Village on the south Texas Gulf Coast.During its flight, Starship reached peak altitudes of 145 miles (234 km), the company said.SpaceX engineers had hoped to improve on the Starship\u2019s two past performances, which both ended in explosions minutes after launch. However, the company had acknowledged in advance a high probability that its latest flight might similarly end with the spacecraft\u2019s destruction before the planned mission profile was finished.SpaceX\u2019s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry\u2019s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.Despite the outcome of Thursday\u2019s test, all indications are that Starship remains a considerable distance from becoming fully operational.Musk, SpaceX\u2019s billionaire founder and CEO, has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first humans. Several other ambitious milestones overseen by NASA need to be met before the craft can execute a moon landing with American astronauts.Still, Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in the company\u2019s commercial launch business. It already lofts most of the world\u2019s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.(Reuters)Rocket. Starship rocket, test flight, spacecraft<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SpaceX’s Starship rocket, aimed at future astronaut missions to the moon and beyond, nearly completed a full test flight on its third attempt, cruising through low orbit before being destroyed upon return to Earth. The spacecraft lost communication during atmospheric re-entry and was presumed lost either due to burning up, disintegration, or crashing into the sea. Despite this, the test marked a significant step in the development of Starship, crucial for both SpaceX’s satellite launch business and NASA’s moon program. The two-stage spacecraft, composed of the Starship vessel and Super Heavy rocket booster, launched from Texas, reaching altitudes of 145 miles (234 km). SpaceX’s approach involves pushing spacecraft to failure to refine improvements, indicating Starship is still far from operational readiness. Elon Musk envisions Starship for lunar and Mars missions and as a replacement for the Falcon 9 rocket in commercial launches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[186,1469,303,3,1969,1315,387,542,897,543,1962,817,1971,1970,1960,1827,1961,1238,18],"class_list":["post-4199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-business","tag-coast","tag-culture","tag-cyprus","tag-elon-musk","tag-flight","tag-lost","tag-mars","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-re-entry","tag-social-media","tag-spacecraft","tag-spacex","tag-starship-rocket","tag-statement","tag-test-flight","tag-vessel","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n