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Associated Press

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that Nasa is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.
The redesigned mega rocket made its debut two days after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he was taking the company public. It blasted off from the southern tip of Texas, carrying 20 mock Starlink satellites for release halfway around the world.
It is the 12th test flight of the rocket that Musk is building to get people to Mars one day. But first comes the moon and Nasa’s Artemis programme.
The last of the old space-skimming Starships lifted off in October. SpaceX’s third-generation Starship – a souped-up version dubbed V3 – soared from a brand-new launch pad at Starbase, near the Mexican border. Last-minute pad issues thwarted Thursday evening’s launch attempt.
SpaceX was hoping to avoid the fireworks it experienced during back-to-back launches last year when mid-air explosions rained wreckage down on the Atlantic. Earlier flights also ended in flames.

At 124 metres (407 feet), the latest model eclipses the older Starship lines by more than a metre (1 metre is 3.2 feet) and packs more engine thrust.
The revamped booster sports fewer but bigger and stronger grid fins for steering it back to Earth following lift-off, and a larger and more robust fuel transfer line to feed the 33 main engines.
This fuel line is the size of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first-stage booster. The retro-looking, stainless steel spacecraft also has more of everything – more cameras and more navigation and computer power – as well as docking cones for future rendezvous and moon missions.
Starship is meant to be fully reusable, with giant mechanical arms at the launch pads to catch the returning rocket stages. But on this latest trial run, nothing was being recovered.
The Gulf of Mexico marked the end of the road for the redesigned first-stage booster, and the Indian Ocean for the spacecraft and its satellite demos.
Nasa is paying SpaceX billions of dollars – and also Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin – to provide the lunar landers that will be used to land Artemis astronauts on the moon.
The two companies are scrambling to be first.
While Starship has reached the fringes of space on multiple flights lasting an hour at most, Bezos’ Blue Moon has yet to lift off, although a prototype is being readied for a moon shot later this year.


Nasa is following April’s successful lunar fly-around by four astronauts with a docking trial run in orbit around Earth planned for next year. For that Artemis III mission, astronauts will practise docking their Orion capsule with Starship, Blue Moon or both.
A moon landing by two astronauts – Artemis IV – could follow as soon as 2028 using either Starship or Blue Moon, whichever lander is safer and ready first.
It will be Nasa’s first lunar landing with a crew since 1972’s Apollo 17. The goal this time is a moon base near the lunar south pole, staffed by astronauts as well as robots.
SpaceX is already taking reservations for private flights to the moon and Mars on Starship.
The world’s first space tourist, California businessman Dennis Tito, and his wife signed up 3½ years ago for a flight around the moon. The timing is uncertain.
This week, another wealthy space tourist – Chinese-born bitcoin investor Chun Wang – announced he will fly to Mars on Starship’s first interplanetary mission. Wang previously chartered a SpaceX polar flight in a Dragon capsule last year and, along with his hand-picked crew, became the first to orbit above the north and south poles.
No price tag or date was revealed for his Mars cruise.


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United States

SpaceX launches its biggest, most beefed-up Starship yet on test flight

SpaceX’s Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on Friday. Photo: AP

A screengrab made from a SpaceX live feed shows a view from SpaceX’s Starship 39 rocket after its launch on Friday. Photo: SpaceX via AFP

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Artemis II astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman react during a welcoming ceremony in Houston, Texas, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Nasa’s Artemis II capsule is seen aboard the USS John P. Murtha at Naval Base San Diego on Saturday. Photo: AP

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The SpaceX Starship sits on the launch pad ahead of its sixth flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on November 17, 2024. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS

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Elon Musk is the richest person ever recorded, worth an estimated US$839 billion. Photo: AFP

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US lawmakers warn China is top space rival as race to the moon intensifies

A Kinetica-2 Y1 carrier rocket, also known as the Lijian-2 Y1, with three satellites onboard blasts off from a launch centre in northwestern China. Photo: Xinhua

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World

United States & Canada

CEO Musk hopes the rocket will get people to Mars one day, but he must first beat Bezos’ Blue Origin to help Nasa put astronauts on the moon


CEO Musk hopes the rocket will get people to Mars one day, but he must first beat Bezos’ Blue Origin to help Nasa put astronauts on the moon.


Space

SpaceX

Elon Musk

Jeff Bezos

SpaceX launches its biggest, most beefed-up Starship yet on test flight

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}CEO Musk hopes the rocket will get people to Mars one day, but he must first beat Bezos’ Blue Origin to help Nasa put astronauts on the moon

CEO Musk hopes the rocket will get people to Mars one day, but he must first beat Bezos’ Blue Origin to help Nasa put astronauts on the moon