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 flight was far more successful than its two predecessors, as the vehicle became "the first Starship to complete its full-duration ascent burn" after the six Raptor engines powered it to its expected orbit. It completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy booster and opened a payload door to demonstrate how it could be used for missions like delivering Starlink satellites into orbit.

The vehicle remained in one piece until contact with the Starship spacecraft was lost shortly before its …

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Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has granted SpaceX a license (pdf), the third test flight of its Starship Super Heavy vehicle could take place as soon as Thursday morning. SpaceX's 110-minute launch window opened at 7AM CT / 8AM ET / 5AM PT on March 14th.

The launch attempt took place after it was rescheduled for 9:25AM ET, and the Starship successfully reached orbit velocity.

In a post on X (which, like SpaceX, is owned by Elon Musk), the FAA said it has "determi …

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Hopes were high for the much-hyped first private US Moon lander mission, launched from Cape Canaveral earlier this month. But following a problem with a propellant valve, the Peregrine lander from Astrobotic didn't make it to the Moon and instead burned up in Earth's atmosphere, having failed to deliver its 20 payloads, including a number of NASA experiments.

This follows failed lunar landing attempts from companies based in Israel and Japan in 2019 and 2023, respectively. In fact, no private company has yet landed on the Moon.

The failure of the most recent mission is a blow but not entirely surprising, according to experts. Nor is it in …

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SpaceX's massive Starship rocket just took off shortly after 8AM ET from the company's Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

A few minutes after the launch and a planned "hot stage" separation, the Super Heavy booster exploded instead of continuing its planned descent and water landing, but Starship itself continued into space. Minutes later, the SpaceX team said it had not received any signal from Starship and that they may have lost the ship. The New York Times wrote that the upper stage made it 90 miles high, putting it into space prior to its loss.

Read the full story at The Verge.