SpaceX launched the Starship spacecraft into Earth orbit for the first time

SpaceX has launched the Starship spacecraft into Earth orbit for the first time

According to the BBC, this is the 14th test flight of the Starship spacecraft. All previous flights were suborbital, meaning the spacecraft entered space but did not achieve sufficient speed to enter a stable orbit or remain there long enough.

In the first minutes after launch, everything went according to plan. The upper stage of Starship separated from the Super Heavy booster, which successfully landed in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after.

However, 18 minutes after launch, one of the engines unexpectedly shut down, which could have forced the team to abandon the plan to bring the spacecraft into orbit. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, SpaceX specialists announced that the situation had been reassessed and permission was given to continue the flight.

Less than half an hour after launching from the spaceport in Mexico, Starship entered Earth orbit for the first time in history. After that, it successfully deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites into space.

During the ten-hour flight, Starship is expected to orbit the Earth nearly six times, deploy the satellites into orbit, and then land in the Pacific Ocean, west of the coast of Chile.

Starship is a spacecraft and rocket carrier developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX company.

Musk believes that the Starship system will revolutionize spaceflight due to its full reusability.

SpaceX describes the Starship spacecraft as "the most powerful launch vehicle ever created." In the future, it is intended to transport people and cargo to "Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

The system consists of two main parts — the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster. The total height of the vehicle is 124 meters, and its diameter is 9 meters.

The payload capacity of the Starship spacecraft, meaning the maximum cargo mass that the launch vehicle can carry into the designated orbit, exceeds 100 tons.