SpaceX’s Starship V3 had a successful test flight around the Earth, before concluding the launch with a spectacular fireball explosion.
The 50-storey tall spaceship — the biggest and most powerful of its kind — took off from Starbase, Texas around 5.30pm on Friday CDT (8.30am Saturday AEST) and proceeded to do a suborbital flight around the globe.
Lift-off was successful, with the megarocket powering through the failure of 1 of its 33 Raptor engines.
Shortly after, the massive first-stage booster detached from the upper stage spacecraft (Ship 39) and hurtled back to Earth, landing in The Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had opted not to risk catching the booster at the launch tower.
Ship 39 also lost one of its six engines during flight, but its flight computers adapted by burning the remaining five engines a bit longer to reach space.
While coasting, it deployed 22 dummy Starlink satellites.
The ship survived re-entry and made a fiery but controlled landing in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch.
SpaceX deemed the flight a success and confirmed the fireball as Ship 39 splashed down was pre-planned because it didn’t want to reuse the craft.
The flight is part of ongoing trials before NASA uses this version of Starship to take astronauts to the moon, perhaps as soon as 2028 as part of the Artemis program.
It comes as SpaceX, founded and run by Elon Musk, has officially filed to go public in June.
The initial public offering (IPO) is set to be the largest in Wall Street history, with a target valuation of up to $1.75 trillion.
There’s massive market hype around the IPO and some analysts argue that the astronomical target massively overvalues the company, which currently operates at a net loss.
