SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket records first successful test flight

The hour-long test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket was followed by a splashdown in the Indian Ocean

Starship, the mighty space rocket designed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, recorded its first fully successful test flight on Thursday, splashing down in the Indian Ocean minus any fiery explosion that ended previous attempts.

The demonstration mission from the Boca Chica launch complex in Texas sent Starship to almost 130 miles (210km) of altitude, at a speed above 16,000mph (25,700km/h), showcasing the capability of the world’s most powerful rocket that  is banking on to one day send humans to Mars.

SpaceX celebrated its intact return as the real achievement of the flight. It followed a hard crash landing and of the uncrewed craft last November, seven months after its inaugural test lieaunch ended in similar fashion, and its breakup on re-entry after a trip around the planet in March.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive, wrote in  X, the social media platform the billionaire also own

Musk hailed Thursday’s hour-long, fourth test flight as “an epic achievement”. The company has frequently expressed “failure” to be a crucial part of its development process towards a safe and reliable crew transportation system.

The Starship flight came the same day as Nasa gave details of a helium leak onboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which launched Wednesday on its first crewed mission to the International Space Station.

The space agency has contracted with both SpaceX and Boeing as commercial partners to take astronauts to both lower Earth orbit and deep space. In 2021, Nasa chose Starship as its preferred lander for the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972, and ultimately on to Mars before the end of the next decade.