The mammoth Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight through space on Thursday on its third try, getting farther than ever. However, the rocket disintegrated on its return to Earth.
Thursday’s test, launched from the Starship complex at SpaceX’s site near Boca Chica Village in southern Texas, went according to plan for most of the flight. The Starship system—including the cruise vessel and the Super Heavy rocket booster stacked atop it—reached an altitude of about 135 miles. That was a significant improvement over the 115-mile mark it achieved during its second test flight in November, which ended in an explosion 24 miles above the Gulf of Mexico.
In addition to achieving the higher altitude, the third test flight included the first time that Starship performed a stage separation burn to separate the upper stage from the Super Heavy rocket booster. The company used a new “hot staging” technique for this launch that, as it has done with previous rocket boosters, improves the efficiency of the stage-separation sequence.
But 49 minutes into the flight, communication with Starship was cut off. The craft was close to its planned belly-flop splashdown in the Indian Ocean, and SpaceX later confirmed that Starship had failed to survive re-entry and was lost in the ocean.
SpaceX commentators said mission control lost communication with the Starship from two satellite systems while the spacecraft re-entered the planet’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed. SpaceX said it would use telemetry data to analyze the cause of Starship’s failure and make modifications for future tests. The company’s next Starship flight is scheduled for late April.
Musk praised SpaceX on X for Thursday’s test accomplishments, noting that the company was progressing toward developing a multipurpose spacecraft capable of taking astronauts to the moon and Mars. NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated the company and emphasized the need to keep testing Starship.
Thursday’s loss was not the first time Starship’s development has suffered setbacks. The first test flight in April, which was supposed to be the first time the system flew, ended in a spectacular self-destruct conflagration 24 miles above the Gulf of Mexico. The second test flight in November failed just before the Starship was to begin a planned loop around the Earth for a Pacific Ocean landing. SpaceX has six more test flights planned this year, but each requires approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Each failure necessitates a full investigation by the agency and corrective actions to be submitted before the company can fly again. This process could take years.