SpaceX’s Starship rocket reached Earth orbit for the first time, though not without some drama along the way.
The company’s mega-rocket launched into space from South Texas early Monday morning and the take off ticked all the early checkboxes for a successful launch. But shortly after the upper stage of the spacecraft separated, it lost one of its six Raptor engines.
While Starship could still reach orbit without one engine, the company initially called off the attempt, only to decide to keep pushing just a few minutes later. The rocket ultimately reached orbit and successfully deployed 26 new Starlink satellites. Roughly 1.5 hours into the flight, SpaceX decided to bring the upper stage back to Earth early, instead of letting it orbit for around nine hours as planned.
“Flight teams will deorbit Starship safely to our pre-cleared area of the Pacific Ocean after 3 hours in orbit,” the company wrote on X.
Reaching orbit is a critical milestone that could let SpaceX start using Starship for regular commercial missions, and, importantly, inch closer to its goal of making the mega-rocket fully reusable. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is orienting the entire company around Starship, which has become central to the company’s plans to operate moon missions for NASA, and far-out ideas like putting data center satellites in orbit.
Prior to the launch, SpaceX had planned to have the Starship upper stage orbit the Earth six times over nine hours while deploying 26 third-generation Starlinks into the satellite company’s constellation of internet satellites. The Ship stage dispensed all of those V3 Starlink satellites during the Monday flight and was able to connect to all 26. They are supposed to start servicing Starlink customers in the next few weeks.
These upgraded Starlink satellites are more powerful than the prior versions SpaceX has used to build its 10,000-strong constellation. The company has said that one full Starship launch of V3 satellites can add the same amount of capacity to the Starlink network as 20 flights of the V2 mini versions, which SpaceX flies on the Falcon 9 rocket.
The company was also able to make progress on returning the Super Heavy booster stage of the rocket back to its launchpad. After separating from the upper stage of Starship a few minutes into the flight, the booster returned to the Gulf coast and performed a simulated landing over the water. It was the cleanest simulated landing SpaceX has performed with the V3 version of Starship, which it started testing in May.
This was the third test of Starship V3, each happening around two months apart. It was also the second Starship launch since SpaceX went public in the largest IPO ever. The company’s stock jumped more than 1% in early trading Monday, but fell into the red after SpaceX decided to end the first orbital mission early.
Musk has said he wants Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, to eventually fly thousands of times per year. To pull this off, he recently inked a deal with Louisiana to build a new Starbase launch complex that dwarfs the existing one in Texas. The company has said it plans to invest $100 billion in that new facility, with construction starting next year.
This story has been updated with more information about Starship’s early return.
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Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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