SpaceX came close to completing an hour-long test flight of its mega rocket on its third attempt on Thursday, but the spacecraft was lost while descending to Earth.
The company said it lost contact with the Starship as it neared its goal of splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The first stage booster also ended up in pieces, breaking up much earlier in the flight over the Gulf of Mexico after being launched from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border.
“The ship is lost. So no landing today,” said SpaceX’s Dan Huot. “But again, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come this time.”
Two test flights last year both ended in explosions minutes after takeoff. Surviving for nearly 50 minutes this time, Thursday’s feat was deemed a victory not only by SpaceX’s Elon Musk, but also by NASA and Starship who flew higher and farther than ever before. The space agency expects Starship to land its astronauts on the moon within a few years.
The nearly 400-foot (121-meter) Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, headed toward the Gulf of Mexico after liftoff Thursday morning, flying east. Spectators flocked to nearby beaches on South Padre Island and in Mexico.
A few minutes later, the booster separated safely from the spacecraft, but broke up 462 meters above the gulf, rather than falling into the water intact. At that point, the spacecraft was well to the east and continuing upward, with no people or satellites on board.
The spacecraft reached an altitude of about 145 miles (233 kilometers) as it skirted the Atlantic and South Africa, before approaching the Indian Ocean. But after 49 minutes of flight – with just 15 minutes remaining – all contact was lost and the spacecraft presumably broke up.
At that point, it was 40 miles (65 kilometers) up and traveling at about 16,000 mph (25,700 kmh).
SpaceX’s Elon Musk had just congratulated his team shortly before. “SpaceX has come a long way,” he said via X, formerly called Twitter. The rocket company was founded exactly 22 years ago Thursday.
NASA has been watching with keen interest: The space agency needs Starship to land astronauts on the moon in the next two years or so. This new group of moonwalkers, the first since the Apollo program last century, will descend to the lunar surface aboard a spacecraft after transferring from NASA’s Orion capsule in lunar orbit.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was quick to congratulate SpaceX on what he called a successful test flight as part of the space agency’s Artemis moon landing program.
The bullet-shaped stainless steel spacecraft was launched on a first-stage booster known as the Super Heavy. Both the booster and the spacecraft are designed to be reusable, although they were never supposed to be recovered Thursday.
During Starship’s maiden launch last April, many of the booster’s 33 methane-fueled engines failed and the booster did not separate from the spacecraft, causing the entire vehicle to explode and crash into the gulf four minutes later the take-off.
SpaceX managed to double the flight duration during the November test run. While all 33 engines fired and the booster detached as planned, the flight ended with a pair of explosions, first of the booster and then of the spacecraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed all fixes made to Starship before approving Thursday’s launch. The FAA said after the flight that it would investigate the incident again. As during the second flight, all 33 booster engines performed well during the ascent, according to SpaceX.
Initially, SpaceX plans to use the giant rockets to launch the company’s Starlink internet satellites, as well as other spacecraft. Test pilots would be followed into orbit, before the company flew wealthy clients around the moon and back. Musk considers the Moon a stepping stone to Mars, his ultimate quest.
NASA insists on an empty spacecraft landing successfully on the Moon, before future moonwalkers come aboard. The space agency is targeting late 2026 for the first crewed Moon landing under the Artemis program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.
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