SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever built launched Thursday and achieved key objectives laid out for its fourth test flight that demonstrated the vehicle’s reusability. The highly anticipated event was the company’s second uncrewed test of 2024. Launch occurred from the private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 a.m. CT (8:50 a.m. ET), and the company streamed live coverage on X, formerly known as Twitter, drawing millions of viewers. The Starship launch system includes the upper Starship spacecraft and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy. Of the rocket’s 33 engines, 32 lit during launch, according to the SpaceX broadcast.
The vehicle soared through multiple milestones during Thursday’s test flight, including the survival of the Starship capsule upon reentry during peak heating in Earth’s atmosphere and splashdown of both the capsule and booster. After separating from the spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster for the first time successfully executed a landing burn and had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after launch. Meanwhile, the Starship capsule successfully achieved orbital insertion.
About 50 minutes after launch, the spacecraft began its controlled reentry journey, and an incredibly colorful buildup of plasma could be seen around the vehicle as its heat shield faced the extreme temperatures of Earth’s atmosphere.
The company’s Starlink satellites helped facilitate a livestream that was continuously available during reentry.
A flap near the camera view on Starship appeared to scorch during reentry and particulate matter blocked some of the view of the camera. But in the end, there was enough of a view to see Starship achieve its expected landing burn into the Indian Ocean.
“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean! Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic achievement!!” posted SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk on X.
The Starship spacecraft is coated in about 18,000 lightweight, ceramic hexagonal tiles, which are designed to protect the vehicle during reentry. NASA administrator Bill Nelson also took to X to share a post celebrating the flight. “Congratulations @SpaceX on Starship’s successful test flight this morning!
We are another step closer to returning humanity to the Moon through #Artemis—then looking onward to Mars,” Nelson posted. The launch was initially expected to occur at 7:20 a.m. CT (8:20 a.m. ET), but SpaceX’s red team was sent in to fix a ground-side issue, which caused the delay, according to the company’s livestream.
The flight test comes two days after the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, gave SpaceX its approval. And the test is occurring one day after SpaceX’s competitor under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Boeing, successfully launched the first crewed mission of Starliner, which is carrying two veteran NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
Each of Starship’s test flights have different objectives that build on lessons learned and milestones achieved during the previous flight.
The Starship team made software and hardware upgrades to the launch system to incorporate lessons learned from the third flight. “The fourth flight of Starship will aim to bring us closer to the rapidly reusable future on the horizon,” according to SpaceX. “We’re continuing to rapidly develop Starship, putting flight hardware in a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible as we build a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”