'You'd never bet against SpaceX'
Thomas Moore @SkyNewsThomas "A lot was hanging on this test flight, and they nailed it," said Sky's science correspondent Thomas Moore.
This was the fourth test flight of the year for the world's largest and most powerful rocket, after the previous three ended in failure.
This time, however, the booster came down in the controlled descent as planned - SpaceX decided not to send it to the launch pad for its classic "chopsticks" catch.
The upper-stage, called the ship, released its satellites, relit its engine and safely made it back through the atmosphere.
That's despite the fact that engineers had removed some of the tiles from the heat shield in order to stress-test the structure.
They were also testing other ways of cooling down the rocket for "what is a blistering ride," according to Moore.
However, even though this test flight has been a success, the rocket hasn't yet proved itself ready to go to the moon and Mars, he said.
"Elon Musk has talked about how difficult it has been designing a heat shield that is robust enough for the really quick turnarounds that he envisages for these rockets," said Moore, who said Musk wants the turnaround to be as "fast as an airliner turns around at an airport".
NASA is "banking on" SpaceX to get the Starship ready in just two years to take people and goods to the surface of the moon.
Elon Musk has even bigger dreams and has talked about an uncrewed Starship going all the way to Mars by the end of next year.
"Now, at the moment, that looks doubtful, but you'd never bet against SpaceX," said Moore.
