Starship Rocket Launch: Despite the failure to complete the full flight test, SpaceX declares it a success

Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its first test flight of the giant new Starship rocket on Thursday, but the spacecraft failed just a few minutes after takeoff. The company's plan was to send the 394-foot (120-meter) rocket on a trip around the world from the southern tip of Texas, but there were no people or satellites on board. Instead, both the booster and spacecraft were to be discarded into the sea. Despite the test flight not being fully completed, SpaceX still considered it a success.

"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary," SpaceX tweeted.

Elon Musk also congratulated the SpaceX team on twitter for the test launch of the Starship rocket system.


"Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months," he said in his tweet.

All you need to know about SpaceX's Starship:

Specifications

Height	120 m
Diameter	9 m
Payload Capacity	100-150 t
Propellant Capacity	1,200 t
Thrust	1,500 tf

The rocketship, which stands at 394 feet (120 meters) tall, is designed to be a two-stage system consisting of the lower-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship vessel. Both components are reusable, capable of flying back to Earth for soft landings, and represent the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth.While prototypes of the Starship cruise vessel have made five sub-space test flights to altitudes of 6 miles (10 km) in recent years, the booster rocket had never left the ground before this launch. In February, SpaceX conducted a test-firing of the Super Heavy, igniting 31 of its 33 engines for roughly 10 seconds with the rocket bolted in place vertically atop a platform.

The launch was originally scheduled for Monday but was scrubbed in the final minutes of the countdown due to a frozen pressurization valve. The Federal Aviation Administration granted a license for the first test flight of the fully stacked rocket system on Friday, clearing the final regulatory hurdle for the launch.

A successful flight of the Starship system will play a pivotal role in Artemis, NASA's newly inaugurated human spaceflight program. The Starship and Super Heavy booster rocket are designed to be reusable, which could significantly reduce the cost of space travel and exploration.

During Thursday's launch, both the lower-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship vessel were not recovered. Instead, both parts ended their inaugural flight to space with crash landings at sea - the lower stage falling into the Gulf of Mexico, and the upper stage coming down in the Pacific after achieving nearly one full Earth orbit.

While Elon Musk's announcement of the second launch attempt on 4/20 (a date widely associated with cannabis culture) amused many of his fans and detractors alike, the successful launch represents a significant achievement for SpaceX and the future of space exploration. As designed, the Starship rocket is nearly two times more powerful than NASA's own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its debut uncrewed flight to orbit in November, sending a NASA cruise vessel called Orion on a 10-day voyage around the moon and back.