World News
SpaceX’s Starship rocket reaches orbit for first time
SpaceX has launched its enormous Starship into orbit for the first time, deploying Starlink satellites before returning to Earth early due to an engine issue.
The spacecraft almost did not achieve the long-desired goal in its Monday launch, after one of its three engines shut down too soon. The mission was scheduled to last 10 hours, but was reduced to three hours after the engine problem.
This time, SpaceX had hoped the Starship would circle the globe from an altitude of 275 kilometres — not just once but six times over almost 10 hours, ending with a Pacific splashdown near Chile.
Musk originally developed Starship for Mars, intending to launch scores of them with the red planet’s first settlers. For now, he plans to focus on the moon and use Starship to haul satellites into orbit by truckload — phasing out the company’s frailer Falcon 9 rocket within several years. NASA’s Artemis IV mission, slated for no sooner than 2028, would have astronauts landing on the moon in either Jeff Bezos’s Blue Moon or Musk’s Starship, whichever is ready first.