BOCA CHICA — The SpaceX Starship, a futuristic craft designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, roared into the sky from Texas on Thursday , a third test launch for Mr Elon Musk's company that has carried it farther than two previous flights that ended with explosions.
The test mission, lasting far longer than previous attempts last year, marked only the third attempt to fly Starship mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster. Both were designed and built by SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company founded in 2002 by billionaire entrepreneur Musk. The launch came less than 24 hours after federal regulators granted SpaceX a launch licence for the test.
Even if it achieves more of its test objectives than before, SpaceX acknowledged a high probability that Starship's latest flight would end up like the first two, with the vehicle blowing itself to bits before its intended trajectory is complete. Still, Mr Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.
That flight went awry from the start. Some of the Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and the lower-stage rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship, leading to termination of the flight.