SpaceX is preparing to launch the third integrated flight test of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster on Thursday morning (Mar. 14) at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
According to the company, weather is 70% favorable and a livestream on X, formerly Twitter, would begin 30 minutes before the beginning of its launch window scheduled at 07:00 Central Time (12:00 UTC).
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Third Time's a Charm
SpaceX said they have to slightly delay its launch time due to boats interfering with the restricted area off the coast of Boca Chica.
Thousands of people surrounding the launch pad and hundreds of thousands more online watched multiple SpaceX's X stream and several YouTube livestreams, including that of Tim Dodd-known on the platform as "Everyday Astronaut."
The big SpaceX rocket launched at 08:25 Central Time (13:25 UTC), cleanly clearing off the pad, which the company called "Stage Zero."
The Super Heavy booster powering the first few minutes of the launch survived the staging and re-entry phases of the flight-a feat not achieved in previous flights-but the launch team lost communication with the booster when it attempted a landing burn, when some of the 33 Raptor engines failed to reignite.
Starship Milestones
On the other hand, Starship achieved nominal orbit insertion and even successfully opened a slit-type payload door in which SpaceX plans to deploy the next generation of Starlink internet satellites in future flights.
Another demonstration milestone the flight achieved by the spacecraft was its on-orbit propellant transport maneuver by spinning the spacecraft to create artificial gravity while in space.
Dodd-who was selected to fly Starship in Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's dearMoon project in the future-claimed that Starship was the largest object that was flown into space, even larger than Skylab, NASA's first space station, which utilized the skeleton of the Saturn V's third stage.
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