SpaceX’s new Starship spacecraft completed an orbit test before splashing down early in the Pacific Ocean, cutting the planned 10‑hour flight to just three hours.
After launching at 13:00 UTC from Kennedy Space Center, the super‑heavy rocket reached a sub‑orbital trajectory, looped around the Earth and deployed 26 next‑generation Starlink V3 satellites into low‑Earth orbit.
The SpaceX team decided to abort the planned re‑entry profile to avoid a potentially hazardous landing site. Instead, the craft performed a controlled splashdown at coordinates 26.4° N, 139.6° W on the Pacific Ocean’s open sea.
“Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever built, poised to carry up to 100 people on long‑duration inter‑planetary flights,” the company said. The new ship will aid future crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.
