Space X successfully launched the most powerful rocket starship ever built

(CNN) — SpaceX successfully launched its massive Starship rocket, the most powerful launch vehicle ever, after federal regulators approved the company’s plans for a third test flight.

The launch was made from a base near Boca Chica Beach, a strip of Gulf of Mexico coastline located at the southern tip of Texas.

The starship spacecraft and super heavy booster rocket passed the critical moment in the mission: stage separation.

The Super Heavy rocket consumes most of its fuel and separates from the Super Heavy’s upper stage, the starship.

The starship’s fate is unknown at this time. After crashing towards Earth and re-entering the atmosphere, the teams lost contact with the vehicle.

Apparently the ship goes through several critical stages. But it is not known whether it completely reached the sea.

According to SpaceX’s Kate Tice, now it’s all about collecting data on all of this.

“So far, everything is going very well,” he said. “Today we were trying to figure out: How do we get a starship to survive orbital velocity, atmospheric entry? And we hope to find out soon.”

SpaceX said another major milestone was reached during the test flight: it completed Tested payload gate but still missing “data reviews”. These doors will have to be opened on future flights if Starship deploys satellites.

SpaceX sees the Starship system as critical to its founding mission: to take humans to Mars for the first time. And, more 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 lifted off from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on March 14, 2024. (Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that the primary goal of these first test flights is to get the starship up to orbital speed, a speed fast enough for the spacecraft to enter a stable orbit around Earth. Typically, such feats require speeds in excess of 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).

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

However, the starship did not attempt to enter orbit on this flight. The spacecraft’s goal on this mission was to crash-land in the Indian Ocean, hopefully more than 370 kilometers (230 miles) from the nearest land mass, according to documents released by the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches.

The goal of the starship

SpaceX’s Starship rocket is seen in an undated photo at the company’s launch base in Boca Chica, Texas. From SpaceX

SpaceX and NASA have big goals for this rocket.

NASA wants to use the starship on the final leg of the journey to take astronauts back to the Moon for the first time in five decades as part of its Artemis program. The space agency awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to operate through 2021 and later signed another $1 billion deal.

Starship is also central to SpaceX’s goal of putting humans on Mars. The purpose of founding the company is to turn humans into a multiplanetary species, sending them to live on other planets if Earth is no longer suitable for life.

A really massive rocket would be required for that task.

“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.

Whether that goal is economically, technologically and politically viable remains to be seen. But Musk and SpaceX have gained a base of hardcore fans who support the idea.

Other items on the Starship’s agenda:

• Send paying customers (or space travelers) into deep space. At least one client, a Japanese billionaire, has already signed up.
• Launch a batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which broadcast the Internet around the world.
• Launch new scientific instruments like space telescopes.

News in development.