Elon Musk and his SpaceX team can breathe a collective sigh of relief. After days of postponements, Starship was finally able to launch its 10th test flight from the launch pad in Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX’s largest and most powerful rocket lifted off Tuesday, August 26, at 7:30pm ET, reached an altitude of 192 kilometers, and embarked on a suborbital trajectory at more than 26,000 kilometers per hour toward the Indian Ocean, where the spacecraft splashed down an hour after liftoff.
Tuesday’s Starship liftoff generated anticipation far above other recent SpaceX test flights, with more than 1.8 million viewers watching the livestream on the company’s X account. Why so much interest? For one, the catastrophic failure on June 18 that resulted in the huge explosion and destruction of Starship vehicle 36, among other past mishaps. The program has also drawn protests by activists and citizens in Texas alarmed by the environmental impact of testing and maneuvering in and around Starbase. The Mexican government has also decried the amount of debris that has ended up in its territory.
Starship also plays an important role in Musk’s ambitions to colonize Mars, and its success is integral to its relationship with the US government—its biggest customer.
Starship was designed as a fully reusable space transportation system. It consists of two parts: the Super Heavy, a booster powered by a set of 33 Raptor engines that provides the necessary thrust to leave Earth; and Starship, the spacecraft that would be responsible for carrying crew and cargo to outer space.
Starship’s 10th flight test not only flew halfway around the world, it was also responsible for deploying eight Starlink simulators, artifacts similar in size to the next generation of Starlink (V3) satellites. The simulators were successfully deployed when the Starship reached an altitude of 190 kilometers over the Atlantic Ocean within half an hour of liftoff. Tests were also performed on other elements of the vehicle, including the Super Heavy’s ability to perform a successful splashdown over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of liftoff.
As the Starship prepared for reentry at 26,660 kilometers per hour, the vehicle showed some damage to its outer shell. However, one hour and six minutes after liftoff, it was able to reach its destination in one piece, until it attempted to land in a vertical position over the ocean, which resulted in the anticipated destruction of vehicle 37. An explosive close to an exciting day for the SpaceX team, with a lot of data to analyze on the horizon.
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
