SpaceX launches Starship Mega Rocket on another test flight after an explosion tainted last

By Marcia Dunn

Almost two months after an explosion sent flamboyant debris that rain on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another rocket of Starship Mammoth during a test flight Thursday to release simulated satellites in space.

The 403 -foot rocket took off from Texas a little before sunset. SpaceX aimed at catching the booster on the first floor with the cushion with giant mechanical arms, the spacecraft continuing east towards a controlled entrance on the Indian Ocean, half of the world.

The spatial redemption flight was to last an hour, performing the satellite delivery test left during the missed demo of January.

NASA has closely monitored the action. The space agency reserved starship to win its astronauts on the moon later this decade. Elon Musk de SpaceX aims at Mars with Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket in the world.

Like the last time, Starship had four simulated satellites to eject once the job has reached space on this eighth flight as a practice for future missions. They looked like Internet Starlink Stellites in SpaceX, including thousands of orbit, and were supposed to fall back after their brief taste for space.

The shutters, the computers and the starship fuel system have been redesigned in preparation for the next big step: turn the spacecraft over the launch site just like the booster.

During the last demo, SpaceX captured the booster on the launch pad, but the spacecraft exploded several minutes later on the Atlantic. No major injury or damage has been reported.

According to an investigation which remains in progress, the fuel leak has sparked a series of fires that closed the motors of the spaceship. The integrated self-destruction system has started as expected.

SpaceX said that it had made several improvements to the space machine after the accident, and last week, the Federal Aviation Administration again cleaned the launch.

The spaceships hang from the southernmost tip of Texas near the Mexican border. SpaceX builds another space vessel complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida, which houses the smallest Falcon rockets of the company which transport astronauts and satellites in orbit.

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Originally published: March 6, 2025 at 3:35 pm PST