The Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built and is designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars or beyond.
SpaceX’s massive Starship has launched, but failed to enter orbit.
The stainless steel spacecraft – consisting of a spacecraft that sits atop the so-called Super Heavy booster rocket – took off from the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, Thursday morning.
At least five of the 33 Raptor engines failed to fire on takeoff, said Spaceflightnow.com’s Stephen Clark. The rocket cleared the launch tower and took to the air.
However, the spacecraft was unable to break free from the Super Heavy booster, spinning the entire ship before breaking apart – in what is technically called a “rapid unplanned disassembly”.
The colossal launch system was 400 feet high, taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York City. The successful launch represents a step forward in US space travel, with the company envisioning the ship as an important link in a manned mission that will one day reach Mars.
The launch sets a record for the largest rocket ever launched.
SpaceX owner Elon Musk had said in March that the chance of the rocket reaching orbit was about 50 percent.
There was a fire at the launch site after launch.
As designed, the Starship rocket is nearly twice as powerful as NASA’s own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its first uncrewed flight to orbit in November.
The US space agency NASA has also selected the Starship spacecraft to deliver astronauts to the moon in late 2025 – a mission known as Artemis III – for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.
SpaceX had previously scrapped a scheduled launch for Monday, citing a pressure issue in the Super Heavy booster in the lower stage. Musk tweeted that he “learned a lot” from the aborted test.
Prototypes of the Starship cruise ship had made five subspace flights up to 10 km (6 miles) above Earth in recent years. The Super Heavy booster had never taken off, although SpaceX did test the booster in February, igniting 31 of its 33 Raptor engines for about 10 seconds with the rocket bolted vertically to a platform.
“It’s a very risky flight,” Musk said live on Twitter on Sunday. “It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket.”
In a successful test, all 33 Raptor engines would ignite simultaneously to launch the spacecraft on a flight that nearly completes a full orbit before re-entering the atmosphere and at supersonic speed about 60 miles (97 miles) clear into the Pacific Ocean falls. km) off the coast of the northern Hawaiian Islands.
After separating from the starship, the Super Heavy booster is intended to perform the beginning of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.