Starship reaches orbit for the first time in a milestone for SpaceX's Moon and Mars plans
SpaceX's Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time on Monday, lifting off from Texas on the programme's 14th test flight and marking a significant step in the company's ambitions to send missions to the Moon and Mars.
The black-and-silver vehicle, which stands more than 120 metres tall, rose through a thick cloud of smoke before its upper stage separated from the Super Heavy booster and reached orbit about 26 minutes into the flight.
"Starship is orbital," a member of the launch team announced, as applause broke out among staff. Deployment of satellites began minutes later.
Earlier flights in full configuration had remained on suborbital paths by design, making Monday's mission the first to place the upper stage in orbit around the Earth.
The flight, expected to last about 10 hours, is intended to carry the upper stage around the Earth several times while it releases 26 next-generation Starlink satellites, expanding SpaceX's satellite internet constellation.
As a precaution, the spacecraft was initially launched on a suborbital trajectory. After some deliberation, the launch team decided to perform a second burn to place the vehicle in orbit — a manoeuvre that analysts had identified as the most demanding part of the mission.
Kathleen Curlee, a senior analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, said before the launch that the second burn required "more forces and more complex calculations" because "the rocket has to do different things when it's experiencing different levels of gravity."
SpaceX aimed for a circular orbit roughly 275 km above the Earth, requiring a speed of about 28,000 km per hour. The plan calls for the spacecraft to travel around the Earth six times before finishing its journey in the Pacific Ocean. The Super Heavy booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico shortly after launch.
Previous Starship tests, all flown on safer, less demanding suborbital trajectories, had ended in explosions, including one over the Caribbean.
The test comes three months after SpaceX's stock market listing and is intended to accelerate development of the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Since beginning full-configuration flights in 2023, the company has made numerous modifications based on the successes and failures of successive tests. Musk has said he wants Starship to be fully reusable.
Substantial technical challenges remain before Starship can conduct commercial flights, deploy data centres in orbit, or carry crews to the Moon or Mars. SpaceX says it hopes the flight will open an "exciting new phase" of development that will include tests of refuelling the rocket in orbit.
Expectations differ between engineers and outside observers. From an engineering point of view, "just achieving flight and getting data" would be considered a success, Curlee said. But spectators and investors have different expectations. "They need to have flashy tests," she added, because anything less would be seen as a failure.
Starship's development has faced repeated delays, and a Chinese company has recently made progress in the field of reusable rockets. SpaceX nonetheless continues to dominate the global space launch market through its partially reusable Falcon rockets.
Regardless of the outcome of this test, three further SpaceX launches are scheduled for the same week, one of which will carry a crew of astronauts to the International Space Station.
