SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Successfully Completes 1st Return From Space

"The company achieved a key set of ambitious goals on the fourth test flight of a vehicle that is central to Elon Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars.

Elon Musk’s giant rocket, which launched from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, survived re-entry on its fourth test flight.

“We have liftoff.” “Vehicle is pitching down range.” “The Starship remains on a good entry trajectory.”

SpaceX’s launch of its giant Starship rocket accomplished a set of ambitious goals on Thursday that Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, set out before the test flight, its fourth.

The flight, while not a perfect success, offered a sign that Mr. Musk’s vision of building the most powerful rocket ever and making it reusable could again transform a global space launch industry that his company already dominates.

 It is most likely encouraging for officials at NASA, which will use a version of Starship to take astronauts to the surface of the moon during its Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for late 2026.

Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, offered his congratulations on X, the social media site that Mr. Musk owns.

“We are another step closer to returning humanity to the Moon through #Artemis—then looking onward to Mars,” he wrote.

The upper-stage Starship vehicle was lifted into space, coasted halfway around the world, survived the searing heat of re-entry and then made a water landing in the Indian Ocean, as planned.

During the descent, cameras on the spacecraft captured the colorful glow of gases heating up below it, At an altitude of about 30 miles, part of one of the steering flaps started falling apart, but it still held together. The view then became obstructed when debris cracked the camera lens."

The way to Mars is open for mankind because such a large spacecraft can protect people during such a long journey.