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He added that SpaceX had obtained “all the data we needed” from the test and hailed the rocket’s ascent phase a success.
SpaceX made its first attempt to launch Starship on Tuesday, but a problem with its Raptor engines forced an automatic abort just one second before liftoff.
The complete Starship rocket, which will stand 394-feet (120.09 meters) tall when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is the company’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – the center of Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine.
NASA awarded SpaceX $135 million to help develop Starship, alongside competing vehicles from rival ventures Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, and Leidos-owned Dynetcis.
The three companies are vying for future contracts to build the moon landers under NASA’s Artemis program, which calls for a series of human lunar explorations within the next decade.
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has been buying up residential properties in the Boca Chica village situated just north of the U.S.-Mexico border in southeastern Texas to make room for his expanding Starship facilities, which Musk envisions as a future “gateway to Mars.”
Musk has faced resistance from Boca Chica residents unwilling to sell their homes.
