SpaceX’s massive Starship took off from the company’s Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 9:25AM ET on Thursday morning. This test launch was more successful than its two predecessors, having completed several planned maneuvers and remained in one piece until contact with the Starship spacecraft was lost shortly before its anticipated splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
It completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy booster and opened a payload door intended to demonstrate how it could be used for missions like delivering Starlink satellites into orbit. The Starship skipped a planned attempt to relight its Raptor engines in space and was scheduled to splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after takeoff.
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