TEXAS, March 15 – SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship completed nearly an entire flight through space on a third test flight on Thursday, but disintegrated on its return to Earth.
The company said it lost contact with Starship as it neared its goal, a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The first-stage booster also ended up in pieces, breaking apart much earlier in the flight over the Gulf of Mexico after launching from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.
“The ship has been lost. So no splashdown today,” said SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot. “But again, it’s incredible to see how much further we got this time around.”
The 121-meter Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, headed out over the Gulf of Mexico after liftoff, flying east. No people or satellites were on board.
A few minutes later, the booster separated seamlessly from the spaceship, but broke apart 462 meters above the gulf, instead of plummeting into the water intact. By then, the spacecraft was well to the east and continuing upward.
Starship reached an altitude of about 233 kilometers as it coasted across the Atlantic and South Africa, before approaching the Indian Ocean. But 49 minutes into the flight – with just 15 minutes remaining – all contact was lost and the spacecraft presumably broke apart.
Still, the third try outperformed the previous two attempts last year, which lasted mere minutes before blowing up over the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX’s founder and CEO Elon Musk was shooting for a shorter, hour-long flight in the latest demonstration, with the Indian Ocean as the spacecraft’s finish line. He noted that the company made thousands of upgrades and fixes to improve the odds. Musk has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first human passengers.
NASA, SpaceX’s biggest customer, has a lot riding on the success of Starship. The U.S. space agency is giving Starship a central role in its Artemis program, the successor to the Apollo missions that put astronauts on the moon for the first time more than 50 years ago.
