Texas: Elon Musk's Starship megarocket
reached orbit for the first time on Monday after blasting off from Texas,
marking a major milestone for SpaceX's future plans, including trips to the
Moon and Mars.
The black-and-silver rocket, standing more
than 120 metres tall, rose through a thick cloud of smoke on its 14th test
flight. The upper stage separated from the Super Heavy booster and reached
orbit about 26 minutes into flight.
During the test, expected to last about 10
hours, the upper stage is set to orbit Earth several times and deploy 26
next-generation Starlink satellites. As a precaution, the spacecraft was
launched on a suborbital trajectory, and after some back-and-forth, the launch
team decided to perform a second burn to reach orbit. "Starship is orbital,"
announced one member of the launch team, as cheers rang out. Satellite
deployment began minutes later.
Previous Starship tests, all conducted on
safer suborbital trajectories, had ended in spectacular explosions. The latest
flight, coming three months after SpaceX's stock market debut, aims to
accelerate development of the largest and most powerful rocket ever designed.
With this test, SpaceX hopes to usher in an "exciting new phase" of
development that will include tests of refuelling the rocket in orbit. The
second burn to reach orbit is "the hardest part," requiring
"more forces and more complex calculations," said Kathleen Curlee, a
senior analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging
Technology.
On this flight, SpaceX aimed for a circular orbit about 275 kilometres above Earth, requiring a speed of about 28,000 kilometres per hour. The plan calls for the rocket to finish its journey in the Pacific Ocean after orbiting Earth six times, while the Super Heavy booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico shortly after launch. The development of Starship has faced repeated delays, and a Chinese company has recently made progress in reusable rockets. Still, SpaceX continues to dominate the global space launch market thanks to its partially reusable Falcon rockets.
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