SpaceX ’s mighty Starship rocket has made it into space on its third trial trajectory . The rocket , launched at 9:25 a.m. ET today , March 14 , shoot to the sky over the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica , Texas , and made it to orbit but was turn a loss before the plan splashdown in the India Ocean .
The vehicle lie of the miserable subdivision , the Super Heavy plugger , and the upper section , the Starship or ship . The two werestacked together aheadof today ’s flight and achieved interval a few transactions after launch . This tricky tactical maneuver involves slew off most of the booster ’s 33 Raptor engine and disengaging clamps connect the champion to the ship . The ship then fires its own engine to manoeuver onward into celestial orbit .
With the ship making it to orbit , this is the furthest a spaceship has reached . In two old test flights , the Starship made it off the pad but explode in the air travel soon after launching in the first flight , then made it further to stage separation before detonate in the 2nd flight .
SpaceX has divvy up footage from the alive stream of the test , including the liftoff of the spaceship :
Liftoff of Starship!pic.twitter.com / FaNcasuKaq
& mdash ; SpaceX ( @SpaceX)March 14 , 2024
It also shared footage of the booster and spaceship performing the legal separation maneuver . The hope was for the booster to render to Earth and be caught by the flight of steps tower with its pair of arms , called chopsticks , but the booster was fall back before it landed .
spaceship ’s Raptor engines have ignited during raging - staging separation . Super Heavy is executing the flip maneuverpic.twitter.com/T593ACilyD
Further footage bear witness the Starship coasting in infinite for the first prison term :
Starship is coasting in spacepic.twitter.com/ZFUXMUkufW
And the spaceship re - enter the air before it was lose :
spaceship re - entering Earth's atmospheric state . view through the plasmapic.twitter.com/HEQX4eEHWH
Though both the Starship and the booster were lose , SpaceX commentator acclaim the examination flight as a success as the fomite travel much further than in previous test , and reach unmanageable object including stage legal separation and re - entry .
“ We got to the actual launching fortune of today , we started into peak heating which was a really big milepost , ” say Dan Huot , SpaceX communications , describing how the spaceship landing succession works by the spacecraft coming straight down before using a flip maneuver . “ You do n’t need a rails . We ’re doing that plan because when we go to the moon , when we go to Mars , there ’s not going to be a runway there for us . So that propellent landing is go to be really important . ”
