Georgina RannardScience correspondent
SpaceX conducted a successful test flight of its latest generation Starship rocket, reversing a trend of disappointing failures.
The world's largest and most powerful rocket took off from Texas just after 18:30 local time (00:30 BST) for a 60-minute flight.
Parts of the engine appeared to explode at one stage, and the flaps on the sides of the rocket caught fire and swung from side to side.
The American space agency NASA plans to use Starship to send people to the Moon as part of its Artemis program in 2027.
“Great job from the SpaceX team!!,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X. which is spending billions to develop Starship, which costs about $100 million each launch.
He will welcome success after three Starship launches this year ended in spectacular failure and one rocket exploded on a test stand in June.
Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket built to date. It consists of the Super Heavy launch vehicle and the Starship spacecraft.
Signs have been positive since the test flight began on Tuesday. All 33 booster engines fired, and after about seven minutes, the booster separated from the spacecraft and fell into the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft continued to rise, reaching a maximum altitude of almost 200 km above Earth, and then circled the planet.
SpaceX said it intended to stress the rocket to test its limits, and parts of the rocket's flaps appeared to be burning and bouncing violently during descent.
The company designed Starship to one day be a fully reusable transportation system capable of taking people to the Moon and Mars.
“It was a great day for SpaceX, completing its first full mission and deploying several test satellites along the route,” said Dr Simeon Barber, a planetary scientist at the Open University.
He adds that SpaceX will collect a complete set of takeoff, flight and landing data, 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 ended in spectacular explosions.
In March, an explosion stopped flights and caused a shower of debris over the Bahamas, and debris landed in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.
But SpaceX successfully performed a “chopstick” maneuver that caught the rocket booster in mechanical arms as it returned to Earth.
It's also high stakes for the American space agency NASA. The company has a contract with SpaceX to use a modified version of Starship to carry humans to the moon as part of its Artemis program in 2027, although most observers say that date is almost certainly slipping.
“This is also a big step forward for NASA's Artemis program, but there is still a lot of development work to be done to prepare this spacecraft and ensure it is safe to carry humans safely to the Moon,” says Dr. Barber.
Mr Musk wants Starship to be certified for human travel as early as next year and has suggested it will begin unmanned flights to Mars within the next 12 months.
SpaceX's mantra was to fail fast and learn fast. Rather than taking a cautious approach, the company has always sought to act quickly, and when rockets explode, the company says it's simply a chance to collect performance data.
But after three consecutive failures this year, questions have begun to be asked about SpaceX's future and whether Musk was spending too much time on US politics.
The world's richest man has been a key supporter of US President Donald Trump's 2024 re-election campaign and the two were close allies before their falling out in June.
The starship returned to Earth on Tuesday battered and battered, but it was a big step forward for the company, which needs to prove it can safely and reliably take people to the moon.
Tuesday's success “puts the program back on track – getting to the moon is just another question,” suggests Dr. Ken Cramer, a research scientist and founder of the website Space UpClose.
He says the U.S. reaching the Moon in 2027 is “extremely unlikely. I don't want to say it's impossible, but it's extremely unlikely.”
The US is competing with China to be the first to return men to the moon, and some scientists say that even with Starship's progress, it is likely that China will win.
