BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s gargantuan deep-space rocket system, Starship, blasted toward the skies after lifting off from its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, marking a successful start to the vehicle’s first test flight since its ill-fated debut in April.

The Starship upper stage began its trip Saturday morning strapped to the top of the Super Heavy first stage, a 232-foot-tall (70.7-meter-tall) rocket packed with 33 massive engines. About two and a half minutes after roaring to life and vaulting off the launchpad, the Super Heavy booster expended most of its fuel, and the Starship spacecraft fired its own engines and broke away.

The Starship spacecraft is now using its own six engines to continue propelling itself to faster speeds. SpaceX aims to send the spacecraft to near orbital velocities, typically around 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy booster blew up but the Starship capsule has continued on course.

NASA is investing up to $4 billion in the rocket system with the goal of using the Starship capsule to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface for its Artemis III mission, currently slated to take off as soon as 2025.

The endeavor is aiming to return humans to the moon for the first time in five decades, and the successful completion of this test flight would bring the US space agency and SpaceX one step closer to that goal.

Already, the rocket booster has performed better than its first showing off the launchpad seven months ago, when several of the Super Heavy’s engines unexpectedly powered off, causing it to spiral out of control just minutes after liftoff. SpaceX was forced during that inaugural uncrewed flight test to trigger the vehicle’s self-destruct feature and blow up both stages over the Gulf of Mexico.

Several key milestones, however, are still ahead in this test flight.

SpaceX’s goal is to send the Starship capsule on nearly one full lap of the Earth, guiding the vehicle back from space over the Pacific Ocean and splashing down off the coast of Hawaii. The entire journey is expected to take an hour and a half.

Safely reentering Earth’s atmosphere will be a key test for the spacecraft. SpaceX will be keeping a close eye on how Starship’s heat shield – the black hexagonal tiles that coat the spacecraft’s belly and protect it from the fiery physics of reentry – will perform.

The company may also test a maneuver – similar to the Super Heavy’s – that Starship will use to slow its descent. The process involves the vehicle flying in horizontally, mimicking a skydiver, before using its engines to swiftly reorient to an upward position as it approaches the ground – or, in this case, the ocean.

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SpaceX only briefly tested that maneuver in May 2021 at much lower altitudes and speeds using an early Starship prototype.

Starship goals

Both the Super Heavy booster and Starship capsule will be discarded after this flight, but SpaceX aims to eventually land, refuel and reuse both parts.

No rocket in history has ever had a reusable first and second stage, a scenario that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has called the “holy grail” of spaceflight economics, with the potential to drastically reduce the price of sending cargo, people and satellites to orbit.

Even if this uncrewed test flight is wholly successful, however, SpaceX has plenty left to prove and several high-stakes ventures riding on Starship’s eventual success.

SpaceX still needs to demonstrate the rocket can safely deliver a payload to orbit – and hash out how to refuel the Starship spacecraft after launch. Topping off the vehicle’s propellant after leaving Earth will be necessary for the Starship to complete missions to deep space, including the planned moon landing.

Already, Jim Free, associate administrator of NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, has warned that Starship delays could push that launch to 2026 or force the space agency to adjust its goals for the Artemis III mission.

The Starship has several other key missions lined up, including a private mission to send billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight guests around the moon, launching the next version of SpaceX’s internet-beaming satellites, and – in Musk’s grand vision – perhaps one day sending humans to Mars.

The-CNN-Wire

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