The rocket’s upper stage, the SpaceX Starship, landed in the Indian Ocean on Friday afternoon after losing one of its six engines. The launch marked the ship’s first test flight this year and the debut of the new version of the rocket, the largest and most powerful ever developed by SpaceX, billionaire Elon Musk’s company.
During the flight, Starship arrived in space, launched 20 Starlink test satellites and two other satellites upgraded with new technology, as planned, before returning to Earth.
However, the ship was unable to restart one of the Raptor engines in the vacuum of space — one of the objectives set by SpaceX for the mission —, according to company spokesperson, Dan Huot, during the live broadcast.
During this Friday’s takeoff, carried out after a failed attempt the previous afternoon, the Super Heavy propellant separated a few minutes after launch and fell uncontrolled into the Gulf of Mexico.
The mission marked the debut of the V3 configuration on both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage and came just days after SpaceX announced plans to go public on the stock exchange.
Furthermore, the Starship test comes at a defining moment for the civilian space race. NASA is closely monitoring the program, as it needs the Block 3 version of Starship to take astronauts to the surface of the Moon on the Artemis Program mission.
The manned mission to the Moon was postponed from late 2026 to mid-2027, in part because of delays in rocket development.
SpaceX competes directly with Blue Origin, an aerospace company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, which offers the Blue Moon system as an alternative.
The program’s recent track record has been shaky. The most recent test flight, carried out in March 2025, ended with the rocket exploding just ten minutes after takeoff, causing airspace disruptions over Florida and the Caribbean.
Source: www.noticiasaominuto.com.br
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