Watch Elon Musk’s Moon and Mars rocket rocket into orbit before losing contact

SPACEX successfully launched its spacecraft into orbit and refueled it from space, a unique achievement during a third test launch today.

Although the spacecraft disintegrated upon reentry, it completed several mission objectives that made the flight a success.

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Starship is the spacecraft that will land boots on the moon in 2026 and will eventually become the ferry that takes people to Mars.

The rocket was launched on March 14 at 1:25 PM GMT / 8:25 AM CT after several setbacks due to weather conditions.

Despite a windy start, Starship broke the records of its second launch attempt in November, which exploded about 10 minutes after launch.

During the third flight, SpaceX tried procedures it had not tested before, including:

• Opening and closing Starship’s cargo door (where Starlink satellites will eventually be deployed from)
• A demonstration of propellant transfer during the coastal phase of the upper stage
• A controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere

These mission objectives made this spaceship’s most ambitious flight ever.

Achieving a propellant or fuel transfer while in the air will be essential for landing humans on the moon and for having enough gas to reach Mars and other deep space locations.

SpaceX announced that the payload door test and propellant transfer demonstration have been completed, making the launch a success.

The third test flight was to demonstrate the first-ever re-ignition of a Raptor engine in space.

However, the team decided to skip that process and save it for Starship’s fourth flight.

After the second launch attempt, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that Starship’s third attempt had a good chance of success.

Musk congratulated the SpaceX team with X: “Starship has reached orbital velocity! Congratulations.”

Instead of the Pacific Ocean, Starship and its booster focused on a new trajectory and a soft landing in the Indian Ocean.

Life on Mars

Starship is the embodiment of Musk’s personal mission to make humans an interplanetary species.

The 33-engine, $3 billion mega-rocket is designed to carry up to 100 people from Earth to the moon and eventually to Mars in the 2030s.

In a SpaceX livestream ahead of launch, the team said Starship is “critical” to creating a “self-sustaining city” on Mars.

From the start, Starship was designed with the capacity to store more than 100 tons of cargo.

This is so it can store everything needed to build permanent bases on both alien worlds.

Not only is it the tallest rocket ever flown, Starship’s first stage, known as the Super Heavy booster, is the most powerful rocket ever built and can produce up to 7.6 million kilograms of thrust.

That’s almost double the current record of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

Starship, developed as part of a $1.15 billion contract with NASA, refers to the reusable stainless steel upper half of the rocket.

While the bottom half of the rocket is the booster, known as Super Heavy.

Not only will the rocket be critical in future Mars missions, but it has also been selected to launch a new outpost intended to replace the aging International Space Station.

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