SpaceX launches Starship megarocket on successful test flight

In an attempt to calm detractors who question if Elon Musk’s startup can meet NASA’s lunar projects on schedule, SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket across Texas’s golden hour skies on Monday before making a successful splashdown.

The massive rocket launched Monday from Space X’s launch facility in south Texas shortly after 6:25 p.m. local time (23:25 GMT) on its eleventh test flight, as seen in a live camera feed that also included thunderous cheers from engineering teams.

While the upper stage, also known as Starship, traveled through orbit and underwent tests, following a similar trajectory to the last successful flight in August, its rocket booster, Super Heavy, made a planned landing in Gulf waters.

It blazed into the Indian Ocean a little over an hour post-liftoff, having released mock satellites as it had on its previous flight. There was no recovery of the vehicle planned.

NASA plans to use the mammoth Starship — the world’s largest and most powerful rocket — in its efforts to return astronauts to the Moon. It is also key to Musk’s zealous vision to take humans to Mars.

The billionaire SpaceX founder said on the webcast prior to launch he was planning to watch outside, rather than inside as he previously had: it’s “much more visceral,” he said.

Monday’s test mission was expected to be the last for this iteration of Starship prototypes. The next flight will debut a new model, Version 3, SpaceX said.

The space technology company could claim its two most recent flights as wins.

But those followed a series of spectacular explosions that raised concerns Starship ultimately might not live up to its promises — at least not on the timeline lawmakers and the scientific community had hoped for.

The US space agency’s Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon as China forges ahead with a rival effort that’s targeting 2030, at the latest, for its first crewed mission.

US President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress — efforts Starship is key to.

Musk’s company has a multibillion-dollar federal contract to develop a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander.