Elon Musk's Starship spacecraft undergoes third test flight
On Thursday, SpaceX's Starship spacecraft completed a circumnavigation of the globe and met a blazing end over the Indian Ocean.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected the vehicle for a future lunar landing, and the test flight was deemed the most successful demonstration of it to yet.
While the spacecraft did not survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, the Washington Post reports that it achieved a number of significant milestones that were praised as critical steps towards assisting SpaceX in perfecting the art of flying the biggest and most powerful rocket in the world.
The craft took off at 9:25 a.m. Eastern time from billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX private launch pad in South Texas, close to the Gulf of Mexico, and flew for about an hour following a nearly flawless launch.
After all 33 of the booster's engines ignited properly, the Starship spaceship split apart and set out to travel the world using its six engines in less than three minutes.
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