SpaceX's Starship Rocket Achieves Splashdown in Milestone Test

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Facts

  • The world's reportedly most powerful rocket ever built, SpaceX's Starship, completed its first successful test on Thursday during its fourth trial, following a liftoff from SpaceX's Starbase near Boca Chica Beach, Texas, at 8:50 a.m. EST.1
  • The Super Heavy booster splashed down less than 10 minutes later in the Gulf of Mexico, while the Starship landed in the Indian Ocean after 40 minutes in orbit.2
  • These splashdowns are considered critical milestones for the company's project to eventually return boosters to the launch site for reuse.3
  • A previous test in March failed upon reentry at around 65 km (40 miles) above the Earth, and two flights last year ended in explosions. SpaceX plans to carry out at least three more test flights in the coming months to prove that the stages can be reused.4
  • Starship — whose 33 engines produce 74 meganewtons of thrust, nearly doubling NASA's biggest Space Launch System — is crucial for Elon Musk's vision of reaching Mars as well as to NASA's Artemis moon program.5
  • The US space agency relies upon the mega-rocket to put astronauts back on the moon by 2026 in a dispute with China. Musk has said that Starship must launch hundreds of times before flying crews.6

Sources: 1Space.com, 2FOX Weather, 3PBS NewsHour, 4Ft, 5BBC News and 6Stars and Stripes.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Hill. Thanks to the ingenious work of Musk, his engineers, and all others competing in the space world, America is well poised to begin a new Space Age, for the betterment of the country and all of humanity. The incremental progress made is coming closer to getting people back to the Moon, and even Mars for the first time. We should all be awed at the huge innovations being made.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Washington Post. While this is certainly a huge step in space travel, Musk's persona could prove to be a stumbling block to this progress. On one hand, Musk is a polarizing public figure, and on the other, he is deeply embedded in federal contracting. Musk may not sustainably be able to be both in the long run, and he could potentially be excised from the government ecosystem unless he takes more moderate positions on issues.

Predictions