SpaceX Starship launches on ninth test flight after last 2 blew up
Starship, the futuristic SpaceX rocket vehicle on which Elon Musk's ambitions for multiplanetary travel are riding, roared into the sky from Texas on Tuesday on its ninth uncrewed test launch, aiming for a clean flight after the last two attempts ended in explosive failure.
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The two-stage spacecraft, consisting of the Starship vessel mounted atop a towering SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster, blasted off at about 7.36pm from the company's Starbase launch site on the Gulf coast of Texas near Brownsville.
A live SpaceX webcast of the lift-off showed the rocket ship rising from the launch tower into the early evening sky as the Super Heavy's cluster of powerful Raptor engines thundered to life in a ball of flame and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapour.
SpaceX launched the Starship system with a previously flown Super Heavy booster for the first time, aiming to achieve a key demonstration of its reusability. The 71-metre (232-foot) first-stage booster will not attempt a return to its launch pad but target the Gulf of Mexico for a controlled splashdown.
Federal regulators granted SpaceX a licence for Starship's latest flight attempt just four days ago, capping a mishap investigation that had grounded Starship for nearly two months.
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Its last two test flights – in January and March – were cut short moments after lift-off as the vehicle blew to pieces on its ascent, raining debris over parts of the Caribbean and disrupting scores of commercial airline flights in the region.
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