SpaceX Launch – Mission Deemed A Success, Despite Re-Entry Failure

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship launched successfully at 9:25 a.m. EST today (March 14). But controllers lost contact with the orbital flight about an hour into the mission. At about 10:40 EST, the New York Times reported that SpaceX acknowledged the orbiter did not survive re-entry but declared the launch successful from the standpoint of mission accomplishments.

The “Super Heavy” (SpaceX's name) booster, designed to propel future space flights to the Moon, “performed beautifully” according to SpaceX, and successfully separated about three minutes into the flight at 100 kilometers’ altitude. The separation was executed by a critical “hot staging” maneuver that involved shutting down all but three Raptor engines.

The booster then descended for an attempted “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico using six engines and thrust vectoring. Video of the booster’s descent cut out during the descent and the fate of the booster is unknown at press time. But SpaceX commentators declared the flight a success from the standpoint of the booster’s performance in launch and getting as far into the controlled landing phase as it did.

The New York Times reported that even before the Starship completed one orbit, SpaceX has three private astronaut missions booked. The first will be led by entrepreneur and space enthusiast Jared Isaacman, who previously purchased an orbital trip aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The second and third missions, to be led by Japanese entrepreneur Yasaku Maezawa and Dennis Tito (the first private individual to purchase a trip to the International Space Station), are planned to travel to the Moon and back.