SpaceX's Starship spacecraft passes important test milestone

According to SpaceX's announcement, Starship flew significantly farther than previous attempts, making a journey through low Earth orbit before encountering problems during its return to Earth.

During a live broadcast on the flight’s website, SpaceX commentators said that controllers lost contact with the spacecraft as Starship re-entered the atmosphere. The spacecraft was approaching its planned landing spot in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch.

SpaceX has also confirmed that the spacecraft lost contact, likely burned up or broke apart during re-entry into the atmosphere or crashed into the ocean.

But the near-full completion of Starship’s hour-long test flight marks a major milestone in the development of a spacecraft that is key to Elon Musk’s satellite launch business and NASA’s lunar program. In a statement posted to social media, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on a “successful test flight.”

During its first test launch last April, the Starship and its Super Heavy rocket failed and exploded over the Gulf of Mexico less than four minutes into its scheduled 90-minute flight. The flight was troubled from the start. Some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned during launch, and the lower stage failed to separate properly from the Starship upper stage, forcing the abort.

During its second test flight in November 2024, Super Heavy carrying Starship flew further than the first and achieved stage separation. However, the spacecraft exploded about eight minutes after launch.

With a higher risk-taking mentality than many established names in the aerospace industry, SpaceX has built an engineering culture based on a flight-testing strategy, which finds errors through testing and then continuously improves through further testing.