2LT International News

BROWNSVILLE, Texas: SpaceX launched another of its massive Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, completing a journey halfway around the world and deploying mock satellites along the way.

The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket — the largest and most powerful ever built — lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in southern Texas, soaring into the evening sky. Its booster separated and made a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico, while the spacecraft skimmed the edge of space before plunging into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.

“Hey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot announced as employees erupted in cheers. “What a day.”

It was the 11th full-scale test flight of Starship, which CEO Elon Musk envisions as the vehicle that will one day carry humans to Mars. For NASA, however, Starship is essential for a near-term goal — landing astronauts on the moon’s south pole later this decade as part of the Artemis program.

Musk, who usually monitors launches from inside Mission Control, said he watched this one outdoors for the first time, calling the experience “much more visceral.”

The previous test flight in August marked SpaceX’s first major success after several explosive failures. The latest mission followed a similar trajectory but added more complex maneuvers, including a series of reentry tests over the Indian Ocean designed to simulate future landings back at the launch site.

As before, Starship carried eight mock satellites resembling SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites. The flight lasted just over an hour.

NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy hailed the test as “another major step toward landing Americans on the moon’s south pole.”

SpaceX is also upgrading its Cape Canaveral facilities to launch Starship rockets, complementing its smaller Falcon fleet that currently ferries astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.