SpaceX’s Starship rocket reaches orbit for first time

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time on Monday morning, achieving a milestone for the programme after the mission briefly looked at risk because an engine failed during ascent.

Starship took off at 7.49am local time out of SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility in South Texas, embarking on what could be a nearly 10-hour long test flight.

The uncrewed 40-story-tall rocket was carrying 26 of the company’s upgraded Starlink satellites that SpaceX intended to deploy in orbit and join the existing internet-from-space network.

Starship began deploying the satellites at roughly 35 minutes after lift-off and all were expected to be deployed roughly an hour into the flight.

As Starship climbed to space, one of its six Raptor engines cut out early, leading SpaceX engineers to temporarily call off the attempt to send Starship to orbit.

However, after looking through the data, the team pressed on with the attempt, burning one of Starship’s Raptor engines and putting the vehicle in orbit for the first time.

Monday’s test flight – Starship’s 14th – is a key moment for SpaceX, as all of the rocket’s other space launches until now have purposefully fallen short of orbit to maximise safety.

Now, US regulators have approved SpaceX to take Starship to the next step, trusting that the company can safely transport the rocket to orbital speeds and bring the vehicle back to Earth in a controlled manner.

If successful, the flight could open the door to many more orbital flights. With this launch, SpaceX will be adding its first upgraded Starlink satellites, known as V3s, to the company’s growing 11,000-plus spacecraft network already in orbit.

Starship deployed V3 Starlink satellites on a previous launch, but they ultimately burned up in Earth’s atmosphere as planned.

SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen has called this mission a “revenue-generating flight” for the company, since the V3 satellites are production quality and will be integrated in the overall network.

SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has also made big claims about the V3 spacecraft increasing the overall capacity of Starlink.

“We do expect a very rapid increase in revenue from Starlink communications from the V3 satellite,” Musk said during SpaceX’s first-ever earnings call in August.

He added that the satellite is “more than 10 times the capability of the V2 satellite, and we’ll be launching 10 times as many”.

Starship is instrumental to all of SpaceX’s grandiose ambitions. Not only is the rocket solely responsible for launching V3 Starlink satellites, it is also tasked with lofting as many as one million future satellites to serve as AI data centres in Earth orbit – a project that fuelled SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO this summer.

Ultimately, Starship is meant to unlock Musk’s goal of sending humans to other worlds, such as the moon and Mars.

However, there is still a lengthy amount of development work that SpaceX must undertake to reach distant locations in space, such as showing the ability to refuel Starship while in orbit.

Additionally, SpaceX wants Starship to be fully reusable, a feat that no other rocket has achieved.

To achieve this, SpaceX aims to “catch” the two major portions of Starship — the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft — back on Earth at the launch pad after each flight.

SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy booster using the Starship launch tower three times. Musk said at the All-In Summit that if this upcoming flight goes well, SpaceX will attempt to catch the Starship spacecraft for the first time on the 15th test launch.

“And then either end of this year, but more likely early next, we will refly the ship and refly the booster,” Musk said.

The Super Heavy booster, which sends the Starship spacecraft to orbit, splashed down in a controlled manner off the coast of Texas about seven minutes after take-off.

Once the full 10-hour mission is complete, the Starship spacecraft should return to Earth from orbit and splash down in the Pacific Ocean to the west of Chile.

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SpaceX will again be testing Starship’s heat shield to see if the vehicle can survive scorching hot temperatures as it plunges through Earth’s atmosphere on the way home.

On Starship’s previous flight, Starship successfully survived its return and even remained intact when it splashed down in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX was able to retrieve that Starship and study how the heat shield handled the descent.

Some experts have cautioned that Starship’s heat shield design is still not robust enough for the rocket to be fully and rapidly reusable. However, Musk said during SpaceX’s August earnings call that he considers the “heat shield problem solved”.

Much of SpaceX’s market worth and continued investor confidence in the company – valued at US$2 trillion as of ⁠Friday’s close – rides on the success of Starship, which was designed as the world’s first fully reusable spacecraft.