SpaceX successfully launches Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built

(CNN) — SpaceX It successfully launched its gigantic Starship rocket this Thursday, after federal regulators approved the company's plans for a third test flight, the most powerful launch vehicle ever built. The rocket reached previously unrecorded heights and speeds, but lost contact as it came down towards Earth.

The launch took place from a base near Boca Chica Beach, a coastal strip of the Gulf of Mexico located at the southern tip of Texas.

The Starship spacecraft and superheavy booster rocket passed a critical moment in the mission: phase separation. The Superheavy rocket consumed most of its fuel and separated from the Superheavy's upper stage, the Starship.

The starship's fate is unknown at this time. The teams lost contact with the vehicle after heading towards Earth and re-entering the atmosphere.

The ship has passed several important milestones. But it is not known whether it reached the sea completely.

SpaceX simultaneously lost two key lines of communication: communication with Starlink, SpaceX's Internet service, and TDRSS, the data tracking and relay satellite system.

Losing both at the same time indicates that the spacecraft may have broken up.

According to Kate Tice of SpaceXNow to collect data about all these.

“Everything is going well so far. “Today we tried to find out: How do we get a starship to survive orbital velocity, atmospheric entry? We hope to find out soon.”

SpaceX He said the test reached another major milestone during the flight: it was complete Payload gate check but no “data reviews” yet. These doors should be opened on future flights if the Starship deploys satellites.

SpaceX considers The Starship system was critical to its founding mission: bringing humans to Mars for the first time. And, most importantly, NASA has selected Starship as the lander that will carry its astronauts to the lunar surface on the Artemis III mission, scheduled for liftoff in September 2026.

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft lifts off from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on March 14, 2024. (Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has told The primary purpose of these first test flights was to bring the starship up to orbital velocity, the velocity that would allow the spacecraft to enter a stable orbit around Earth. Usually, such a feat requires more speed than that 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).

SpaceX is on its third test flight. (Photo: SpaceX).

However, the starship did not attempt to enter orbit on this flight. The spacecraft's goal in this mission is to make a crash landing in the Indian OceanAround 370 kilometers (230 miles) According to documents released by the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, the distance from the nearest land surface.

The target of the starship

SpaceX's Starship rocket is seen in this undated photo at the company's launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. From SpaceX

SpaceX and NASA have big goals for this rocket.

NASA plans to use the Starship as part of its Artemis program to carry out the final leg of a mission to take astronauts to the Moon for the first time in five decades. The space agency awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract through 2021 and later signed another $1 billion contract.

The spacecraft is part of SpaceX's mission to land humans on Mars. The company's founding mission was to transform humans into a multiplanetary race and send them to live on other planets when Earth was no longer habitable.

That mission would require a truly massive rocket.

“We're trying to build something capable of building a permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars; that's why it's so big.” Elon Musk said in October.

It remains to be seen whether that goal is economically, technically and politically feasible. But Musk and SpaceX have a hardcore fan base that supports the idea.

Other items on the Starship's agenda:

• Send paying customers (or space tourists) into deep space. At least one client, a Japanese billionaire, has already signed up.
• Launch SpaceX's fleet of Starlink satellites that will broadcast the Internet around the world.
• Launch new scientific instruments such as space telescopes.

News in development.