SpaceX
Elon Musk might still be having trouble with his social media venture, but on the space front he’s crushing … ’cause his company just successfully launched the largest rocket ever.
SpaceX blasted their Super Heavy-Starship rocket into orbit Thursday morning — with liftoff taking place at their Boca Chica, TX facility … and with this latest attempt marking their third time trying to get this massive beast out into the great beyond.
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Considering they pulled it off, it’s truly an impressive feat — especially when you get a sense of the magnitude of this rocket … which is quite literally the biggest one in human history.
The rocket, in full, stands at a whopping 394 feet and is nearly 30 feet wide — it also includes two different components, the upper stage Starship and the Super Heavy booster. Word is, this thing can generate over 16 million pounds of thrust with its Raptor engines.
SpaceX
In other words, it’s a monster of a machine … and on Thursday, Elon and co. were finally able to get it up in the air and past our atmosphere, where it started a sub-orbital flight that’s designed to traverse the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and much of the Indian Ocean.
The rocket is supposed to detach, with the booster dropping into the GOM — and the upper stage touching down in the Indian Ocean … yes, both can be done with controlled landings.
Eventually, SpaceX (and NASA) is hoping to use the Super Heavy-Starship to make trips to the moon … something that hasn’t been done for a long time, but which they wanna start back up again. Now that this test flight went off without a hitch (so far), it’s within reach.
Launch Gallery
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People may not like the guy, but this is a huge W for Elon. Congrats!
