SpaceX pulls off Starship rocket launch in much-needed comeback 17 hours ago Share Save Georgina Rannard Science correspondent Share Save Watch: SpaceX Starship completes successful test flight SpaceX has pulled off a successful test flight of its newest generation rocket Starship, reversing a trend of disappointing failures. The world's largest and most powerful rocket blasted off from Texas just after 18:30 local time (00:30 BST) for a nail-biting 60-minute flight. Parts of the engine appeared to explode at one stage, and flaps on the side of the rocket caught fire and swung from side-to-side. US space agency Nasa plans to use Starship to send humans to the Moon for its Artemis programme in 2027. "Great work by the SpaceX team!!", posted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on X, who is spending billions on developing Starship, which each launch costing an estimated $100m. He will be welcoming the success after three Starship launches ended in spectacular failure this year, and one rocket exploded on the launch pad in June. Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket built to date. It is made up of a booster called Super Heavy and the spacecraft Starship. The signs were positive from the start of Tuesday's test flight. All of the booster's 33 engines fired up, and after about seven minutes, the booster separated from the spacecraft and fell into the Gulf of Mexico. Starship continued to ascend, reaching a maximum height of almost 200km above Earth, before coasting around the planet. SpaceX said it intended to put the rocket under stress to test its limits, and parts of the rocket's flaps appeared to burn and swing wildly during the descent. The company has designed Starship to one day be a fully reusable transport system capable of carrying people to the Moon and Mars. "This was a great day for SpaceX, executing its full mission for the first time and deploying some test dummy satellites along the route," says Dr Simeon Barber, a planetary scientist at the Open University. He adds that SpaceX will have gathered a full set of data from take-off, cruising and landing, which is a big step forward for the company. The first version of the rocket had five successful launches, but all attempts to launch the newest version had ended in spectacular explosions. In March, one explosion grounded flights and caused debris to rain down over the Bahamas with pieces landing in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. But SpaceX did successfully execute the "chopstick" manoeuvre that caught the rocket booster in mechanical arms when it returned to Earth. And in June, a Starship rocket exploded on the launch pad in Texas when preparing for a test flight. Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket system which has ever flown