Elon Musk’s Starship lifts off! World’s most powerful rocket launches for fourth test flight
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched its fourth Starship flight test, just two months after its last launch failure.
The 400-foot rocket – which was unmanned – took off from Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:50 a.m. ET on Thursday to reach Earth’s orbit for 120 minutes before re-entering the atmosphere and crash-landing in the Indian Ocean.
Starship is intended to be the first spaceship to reach the Red Planet, with Musk previously proclaiming that it will ‘bring humanity to Mars’.
Although last month’s launch marked a major milestone by reaching orbit, it exploded upon reentry, leaving people wondering if it was capable of making the journey.
SpaceX’s mission plan does not include recovering the rocket from the Indian Ocean after the crash.
Starship is intended to be the first spaceship to reach the Red Planet, with Musk previously saying it will take humanity to Mars.
In 2020, Musk unveiled his plan for Starship to send humans to Mars.
He calculated that to have a million people on the Red Planet by 2025, his rockets would have to make about three flights a day and a total of 1,000 flights a year – but 2025 is just around the corner.
The billionaire renewed his vow to colonize the world of Mars in a post on X earlier last month.
‘I’m going to colonize Mars. My mission in life is to make humanity a multi-planetary civilization,” the post said.
Musk reposted the message from his personal account with the accompanying words: “Only if civilization lasts long enough.”
A day before the mission, former President Barack Obama spoke at a sustainable energy conference in Paris and mentioned “tycoons, many of whom are building spaceships that could take people to Mars.”
“But when I hear some people talking about the plan to colonize Mars, because the environment on Earth could deteriorate to the point of being unliveable, I look at them like, what are you talking about,” he continued.
‘I would rather that we invest here in caring for this planet.’
Although Thursday’s mission did not end as planned, the farthest test flight was carried out on a Starship rocket.
Starship, the most powerful and largest launch vehicle ever built, achieved one important first goal: a successful separation of its Super Heavy booster.
