In first, SpaceX’s megarocket Starship nails ocean splashdown

AFP |Washington

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket achieved its first ever splashdown during a test flight Thursday, in a major milestone for the prototype system that may one day send humans to Mars.

Scraps of fiery debris came flying off the spaceship as it descended over the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia, dramatic video from an onboard camera showed, but it ultimately held together and survived atmospheric reentry.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X.

“Today was a great day for humanity’s future as a spacefaring civilization!” he added. The most powerful rocket ever built blasted off from the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 am (1250 GMT), before soaring to space and coasting halfway across the globe, for a journey that lasted around an hour and six minutes.