Three years of waiting ends

SpaceX launched its first Starship rocket in spring twenty twenty-three, promising it would reach orbit. On the fourteenth attempt, it finally did.

Starship enters Earth orbit

At nine fifteen am ET, SpaceX announced Starship performed its orbital insertion burn and entered orbit one hundred seventy miles high, just twenty five minutes and seventeen seconds after launch from Starbase, Texas.

“Starship performs its orbital insertion burn and enters orbit of Earth for the first time”

Why this matters to NASA

Starship is critical to NASA's long-term plans. In twenty twenty-one, NASA selected Starship as one of two spacecraft to land astronauts on the moon as early as twenty twenty-eight.

The most powerful rocket ever

Standing four hundred seven feet tall with thirty three first stage engines producing sixteen point seven million pounds of thrust, Starship is far more powerful than NASA's Space Launch System, which produces eight point eight million pounds.

A replacement for Falcon 9

SpaceX sees Starship as an ultimate replacement for Falcon nine, which accounted for nearly fifty one percent of global commercial launches and eighty five percent of all satellites in twenty twenty-five. Starship's larger payload bay can carry cargo equivalent to nearly five Falcon nines.

From explosion to success

The inaugural launch on April twenty, twenty twenty-three exploded four minutes in, with debris raining across a near four hundred acre footprint and a three point eighty five acre fire burning south of the launch site. Environmental groups challenged the launches, but flights proceeded at once every three months until today's success.

Today's imperfect but successful flight

One of Starship's six engines failed to burn properly, requiring others to compensate. SpaceX skipped its signature chopstick recovery, instead splashing the first stage down in the Gulf of Mexico to simplify the mission objectives.

Starlink satellites deployed

Today's launch was also operational, delivering twenty six Starlink satellites to orbit using what SpaceX calls its Pez dispenser system. This adds to the whopping eleven thousand satellites already comprising the Starlink constellation, with an eventual goal of one hundred thousand.

A small but critical step

Starship must still be adapted to carry crew, solve a stubborn refueling problem, fly its Artemis three test flight in twenty twenty-seven, and complete an uncrewed moon landing before carrying astronauts as early as twenty twenty-eight.