SpaceX Spaceship 'Starship' Successfully Completes Test Flight on 4th Attempt

Bloomberg "A New Milestone in the Commercialization Journey of Spacecraft"

Starship, the large spacecraft of SpaceX, the space company led by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, successfully completed its Earth orbit test flight on the fourth attempt.

On the 6th (local time) at 7:50 a.m. (Central Time), SpaceX launched Starship, developed for lunar and Mars exploration, from the Starbase space launch facility on the southern coast of Boca Chica, Texas.

About three minutes after launch, the lower part of the two-stage launch vehicle, the "Super Heavy" rocket, smoothly separated from the upper spacecraft Starship. The Starship spacecraft reached an altitude of 210 km at a speed of approximately 26,225 km/h and flew the planned Earth orbit trajectory. About 40 minutes after launch, it began to lower its altitude, re-entered the atmosphere, and splashed down in the sea, completing a journey of about 70 minutes. The Super Heavy also succeeded in landing burn for the first time after separating from the spacecraft and made a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, achieving the main goal of the flight test about eight minutes after launch.

SpaceX posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), "Splashdown was successful. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team," and "Celebrating the exciting fourth flight test of Starship."

Splashdown refers to the spacecraft slowing down with parachutes and landing in the sea when returning to Earth.

Previously, SpaceX attempted the third Earth orbit test flight of Starship in March but failed. Although Starship flew for about 48 minutes and reached orbit, communication was lost during the descent. Test flights were also attempted in April and November last year but failed after about 4 minutes and 8 minutes, respectively.

CEO Musk is developing Starship with the goal of pioneering Mars and enabling human migration. The success of this test flight is seen as a step closer for humanity to reach Mars. It is also analyzed as an important milestone for Elon Musk’s commercialization of spacecraft.

Bloomberg News reported, "SpaceX’s massive Starship survived most of the journey flying into space and passing through Earth’s atmosphere," and "set a new milestone in Musk’s journey toward spacecraft commercialization."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.