Stunning Perseverance photo gives breathtaking view of Martian landscape NASA reveals panoramic photo of Mars' surface with a deceptively blue sky above. The 33 engines powered up and SpaceXs massive Starship crept slowly skyward kicking off its tenth test flight out of Texas.
Previous flights did not go as hoped, but this time was different.
The Aug. 26 test flight saw the Super Heavy booster splash down in the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. While SpaceX has demonstrated its ability to catch the booster back at the launch tower in the past, the splashdown this time was planned. SpaceX was pushing the capability of the booster.
Meanwhile, the ship coasted in orbit successfully opening the payload bay door.
One by one, mockup Starlink satellites drifted out of the ship. Starship had its first payload deployment a major milestone in the program.
Just under 38 minutes into the flight, Starship hit another milestone by relighting one of the ships engines in space. That's a critical component for a controlled reentry.
But upon reentry, the rear "skirt" of the spacecraft experienced damage, shown on live views of the flight. SpaceX claims this is to be expected, as the ship was intentionally being stressed to acquire data.
"We're putting ship through the wringer," said Dan Huot of SpaceX, as the ship was shown falling -- and burning -- through the atmosphere.
Around one hour and six minutes into the flight, the massive ship lit its engines, flipped around, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean bursting into flames. Even with the ending, the flight hit all major milestones. Now, the team will review the data.
"Congratulations to @SpaceX for a successful launch and splashdown of Starship! This brings America one critical step closer to returning to the Moon and reaching Mars," wrote Rep. Mike Haridopolos on X shortly after the flight.
The monster rocket is planned to someday launch from Cape Canaveral and NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
There is some fear. 'Oh my God, Starship is going to shut down everything,'" said Kiko Dontchev, VP of launch at SpaceX, to a local crowd during the Aug. 22 seventh annual Space Coast Symposium. "Thats not true."
Local fears of the big rocket include road closures, noise and air pollution, infrastructure damage, temporary closures at Playalinda Beach, and disruption of industries such as fishing.
Sure, is it a big rocket? Yes, its bigger than Falcon 9 actually, its the biggest rocket ever built, said Dontchev. "But weve done a lot of work to basically figure out how to shrink the impact."
With NASA under recent pressure to land the Artemis III crew on the moon by 2027 before a Chinese planned landing by 2030 the clock is ticking for Starship to be ready to launch and serve as a human lunar lander for NASA astronauts.
Dontchev mentioned the lengthy ongoing environmental studies with NASA, Space Force, and the Federal Aviation Administration. He said SpaceXs goal is for Starship to be an asset to the Space Coast.
SpaceX is pushing for Starship to make its maiden uncrewed voyage to Mars by late 2026, when the planet will next be closest to Earth.
But before SpaceX can even get that far, multiple Starships will have to be launched, requiring a refueling in orbit. This will be done by a propellant transfer from ship to ship, a future milestone SpaceX plans to test.
The objectives for this flight were the same as those missed on Flight 9 back in late May deploying eight Starlink simulators and relighting one of the ships Raptor engines while in space.
SpaceX has been launching Starship out of Starbase, Texas, for years and has had multiple successes among the failures including some flights coasting in space for close to an hour, and even catching the giant first stage booster back at the launch tower on the fifth and seventh flights.
After those successes, the program appeared to have a setback, with the ship being lost very early in the flights and even exploding on the test stand in Texas.
We have definitely had some challenges at Starbase, said Dontchev. SpaceXs approach is to fly and to test. Its always been our approach.
Dontchev explained that a company can do a lot of design and planning on paper, but until that rocket is flown, it remains unknown how that design will truly work. While SpaceX does not intentionally plan for failures, it learns from them.
While SpaceX has received funding from NASA to develop the Human Landing System for the Artemis missions, SpaceX claims to be funding the majority of the Starship program.
Weve been able to really push the envelope, said Dontchev. Its okay to break things as long as were safe and are good stewards if we have a problem we go and handle our business.
Dontchev mentioned Cape Canaverals past, including testing of rockets in the 1950s and 1960s, many of which failed spectacularly. But unlike past rockets, Starship isnt being tested at Cape Canaveral.
With Starship, youre going to get a better machine which shows up ready to party, said Dontchev.
SpaceX intentionally stresses the ship on these test flights. The major milestone for the Starship program will be to not only see the ship complete an orbit but also return to the launch site.
The flight test includes several experiments focused on enabling Starships upper stage to return to the launch site. A significant number of tiles have been removed from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle during reentry, SpaceX states on its website about the current flight.
The goal is to eventually see a fully reusable launch system, something that would bring down the cost of launching to space even more drastically than the Falcon program.
While it has become routine for the companys Falcon 9 rockets to land and reuse the first stage, the upper stage is discarded. When SpaceX gets Starship to fully meet that goal, it would eliminate that.
Thats how you drastically reduce the cost of access to space and increase the amount of capability to orbit, said Dontchev.
Dontchev also said that SpaceX welcomes competition from other launch providers coming to Florida.
We want to help the DoD and KSC design a spaceport where, you know, where its not just SpaceX, said Dontchev. We want Blue Origin. We want Relativity&we want Stoke to come in and be prosperous and successful.
When Starship does launch from Floridas launch pads NASAs Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A and Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station the returning Super Heavy boosters and ships will create sonic booms. And SpaceX plans to launch frequently, with a rapid turnaround time for the fully reusable rocket.
As we stabilize that rocket, were going to operationalize it, and were going to bring it to Florida, said Dontchev.
The Space Force and Federal Aviation Administration are currently finalizing environmental assessments before the first launch from Florida can occur, and have welcomed public comments.
The Federal Aviation Administration is hosting public meetings this week on the Kennedy Space Center Draft Environmental Impact Statement. For those who cannot attend in person, a virtual meeting will be available from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 3. Those interested can register online.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @brookeofstars .
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