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- Jan 13, 2023
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Elon Musk proudly proclaimed 'Starship will take humanity to Mars' after the massive rocket hit a major milestone of reaching orbit during a Thursday flight test.
While venturing into space was part of the mission, the event ended in tragedy when the rocket was 'lost' while reentering the atmosphere - leading some to question if Starship is even capable of reaching the Red Planet without exploding.
The mishap marks the third $3 billion Starship to be loss during tests flights in less than one year - and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has opened investigation to determine what went wrong.
The two-stage craft, consisting of the Starship cruise vessel mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, took off from SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas, flight test facility on the Gulf Coast at 9:25am ET.
But SpaceX revealed around 10:35am ET that the world's most powerful rocket had been lost.
'The team has made the call that the ship has been lost, so no splashdown today,' said Dan Huot, SpaceX communications manager, during the live broadcast.
'But again, just it's incredible to see how much further we got this time around.'
SpaceX's mission plan did not include recovering the rocket from the Indian Ocean after splashdown, but Starship breaking up in the atmosphere was unexpected.
⭐ Elon Musk
