Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its giant Starship rocket into space from Texas on Tuesday, expanding the ship’s spaceflight capabilities but failing in an attempt to bring the booster back to earth as US President-elect Donald Trump watched from the company’s rocket sites.
The Starship spacecraft carrying a Super Heavy rocket was launched from SpaceX’s Starbase launch pad in Boca Chica in southeast Texas at 5pm US East Coast time on Tuesday.
US President-elect Donald Trump arrived at the site. Shortly before, he wrote on his social media network Truth Social that he was “heading to the great state of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to go up in the air.”
After one loop around the earth, Starship’s prospective manned spacecraft followed its descent from orbit and landed in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia.
Meanwhile, the Super Heavy carrier made a controlled landing in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after launch. SpaceX cancelled the Super Heavy’s return to the launch pad, where it was supposed to be grabbed by special tower arms, robotic arms of the Mechazilla system, during landing. Such an operation was carried out for the first time during the previous test flight.
The reusable rocket system consists of a Starship spacecraft and a Super Heavy carrier. Its height exceeds 120 metres. It is taller than any other rocket ever built in the world. The Super Heavy carrier is twice as powerful as the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy rocket being built by NASA for manned missions to the moon.
The rocket has previously been launched five times, but only three flights – in March, June and October this year – have been successful.
Musk was an active associate of Trump during the election race. He spent more than $100 million to finance it. The X founder, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, will head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) created by Trump.
