Elon Musk’s SpaceX has successfully carried out the longest test flight of its massive Starship rocket, but it disintegrated on its return to Earth. The module was destroyed while approaching its landing point in the Indian Ocean.
Here are the highlights of the Starship rocket and Thursday’s launch by the United States company:
Starship and the milestones it achieved on this flight
The test flight was the third for Musk and SpaceX, and its Starship rocket travelled halfway around the Earth before it re-entered the atmosphere.
The rocket, which consists of a spacecraft also called Starship, and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy took off from SpaceX’s private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:25am (13:25 GMT).
The rocket successfully opened and closed its payload doors while in orbit, performed the transfer of super-cooled rocket propellant from one fuel tank to another and executed a flip manoeuvre with its Super Heavy booster to initiate its return to Earth. These accomplishments have the potential to revolutionise space transportation and support NASA’s mission to send astronauts back to the moon, analysts said.
Forty-five minutes after the launch, Starship started its descent into Earth’s atmosphere, heading towards splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Starship reached an altitude of more than 200km (125 miles) as it coasted across the Atlantic and South Africa before approaching the Indian Ocean.
At about the 49-minute mark, communication with Starship ended, and SpaceX confirmed that the rocket had not survived re-entry, likely disintegrating and descending into the ocean.
According to Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, one of the objectives of these initial flights was to get Starship to orbital velocities, which are about 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,500 miles per hour). Starship hit its orbital speed target goal.
This particular flight was not, by design, intended to make it all the way around the Earth. The ascent was smooth.
Super Heavy booster
As the launch commenced, the Super Heavy booster came to life and propelled the rocket over the Gulf of Mexico.
The booster was expected to help the rocket make a controlled landing in the ocean, but “it didn’t light all the engines that we expected, and we did lose the booster,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said.
“We’ll have to go through the data to figure out exactly what happened,” he added.
But it accomplished what previous Super Heavy boosters had not been able to achieve. In two previous attempts, the Super Heavy booster was destroyed midair before it could even attempt landing manoeuvres.
According to experts, despite hiccups, SpaceX is making remarkable progress towards its goals.
“SpaceX is 22 years old today. The company announced its plans for Starship in 2015. This is the third in-flight test for this rocket system in less than a year, so they are definitely making very big strides towards that goal,” Amy Lynn Thompson, a Florida-based space and science journalist, told Al Jazeera.
NASA wants to use Starship to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years as part of its Artemis programme. In 2021, the US space agency awarded SpaceX a $2.89bn contract for this mission, followed by an additional $1bn agreement.
SpaceX has also set itself the goal of getting humans to Mars. One of SpaceX’s stated primary aims is to establish humans as a multiplanet species as a precaution in case Earth becomes uninhabitable.
“We are trying to build something that is capable of creating a permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars. That’s why it [Starship] is so large,” Musk said in October.
“Otherwise, we can make it much smaller,” he added.
The powerful rocket can lift five times as much material into space as the next largest available craft. According to the SpaceX plan, Starship could carry 100 people into orbit at once. The maximum number of people ever to have been in space simultaneously has been 20, recorded for a brief moment in January.
SpaceX aims to make both the vehicle’s lower rocket booster and the upper spacecraft stage capable of flying over and over again. The reusability provides SpaceX with the opportunity to reduce the costs of launching satellites as well as transporting people and the necessary resources for sustaining life in space.
“With each flight test, SpaceX attempts increasingly ambitious objectives for Starship to learn as much as possible for future mission systems development. The ability to test key systems and processes in flight scenarios like these integrated tests allows both NASA and SpaceX to gather crucial data needed for the continued development of Starship HLS,” said Lisa Watson-Morgan, programme manager for the Human Landing System project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
How have others reacted?
Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, congratulated SpaceX on what he called a “successful test flight”.
Congrats to @SpaceX on a successful test flight! Starship has soared into the heavens. Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon—then look onward to Mars. https://t.co/VXq8Vp1sAc
HUGE congratulations to the entire team for this incredible day: clean count (glad the shrimpers could get out in the nick of time!), liftoff, hot staging, Super Heavy boost back and coast (and likely a couple engines making mainstage… pic.twitter.com/D3YUPIgKNH
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
