Elon Musk’s Starship reaches orbit on its third attempt

THE WORLD’s largest rocket has flown again, and its uncrewed test flight on March 14th, like the two previous ones, ended in “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (ie, catastrophic explosions). But the upper stage of Starship, built by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, reached orbit for the first time and completed several test operations before being destroyed while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. In a defiant post on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, Mr Musk insisted that “Starship will make life multiplanetary.” Perhaps. This latest flight was at least another small step in that direction.

Starship is in fact two vehicles: the Super Heavy booster stage, a behemoth 71 metres tall with 33 engines, and the 50-metre Starship upper stage, which separates from the booster at an altitude of around 70km (44 miles) to proceed to orbit. The combined vehicle’s first test flight, in April 2023, ended roughly four minutes after lift-off, with the self-destruction of the entire spacecraft, after stage-separation failed and the rocket began to corkscrew erratically. During the second test flight, in November, the Starship upper stage successfully separated from the booster around three minutes into the flight, and continued to fly for another eight minutes, reaching an altitude of 149km. But both vehicles then suffered failures that led to their rapid unscheduled disassembly.