SpaceX has launched a prototype Starship vehicle into orbit for the first time, as the company strives to create a working vessel for NASA’s delayed plan to return humans to the Moon.
The upper portion of the Starship vehicle, called the Ship, successfully orbited Earth for the first time, completing two orbits before SpaceX returned it to Earth, where it landed in the Pacific Ocean.
The Super Heavy booster portion, meanwhile, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.
Orbital success
During the flight, the Starship rocket deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites into orbit to provide commercial broadband connectivity via the Starlink service.
A previous Starship test launch in July, the ship’s 13th launch, brought the Ship portion into sub-orbital trajectory.
The most recent launch, which was carried out on the morning of 28 September US time, experienced a number of technical difficulties.
One of the Super Heavy booster rocket’s 33 engines appeared to cut out early during its ascent, after which only 31 of the rockets relit for its descent.
One of the six rockets of the Ship portion of the craft also shut down prematurely.
The upper-stage Ship vessel survived its return through the Earth’s atmosphere, firing its rockets to slow its descent into the Pacific Ocean, but moments after it splashed down, a large fireball was seen, after which the vessel appeared floating on its side, surrounded by flames.
Lunar plans
The test had initially been planned to carry the upper stage around the Earth six times over the course of 10 hours, but SpaceX decided to end the test early, after one hour.
The test launch was nevertheless the most successful to date for the Starship rocket, after many previous Starship tests ended with the craft exploding either in flight on on the launch pad.
NASA is funding the development of Starship to carry astronauts to the Moon in the Artemis IV mission, currently scheduled for early 2028, which is now planned to be NASA’s first flight to return humans to the Moon.
The mission plan includes lifting a fuel-filled version of Starship into orbit, using it to refuel a crewed Starship, sending the crewed vessel to land on the Moon and return, after which the vehicle is to execute a landing on a launch pad – none of these manoeuvres having yet been tested.
NASA had previously intended two other projects to send humans to the Moon, one called Lunar Gateway and the other being Artemis III, but has abandoned those plans, with Lunar Gateway being cancelled in March 2026 and Artemis III now intended as a demonstration flight in low-Earth orbit.