SpaceX confirms that the giant rocket Starship was lost as the vehicle entered the atmosphere after what started as a successful launch.
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full screen nextSpaceX rocket Starship was launched from Boca Chica in Texas on Thursday. Everything went as normal until the rocket was on its way back into the atmosphere.
1 of 2 Photo: Eric Gay / AP / NTB
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Yesterday 15:55
The rocket took off from the company’s base in southeast Texas at 8:25 a.m. local time, a little before 2:30 p.m. Norwegian time, on Thursday. Over 1.5 million viewers followed the live broadcast online.
Everything seemed to be going as normal. But as Starship, after initially entering low Earth orbit, was re-entering the atmosphere, SpaceX lost contact with the craft. Shortly after, the space company confirmed that the Starship was lost.
Two previous Starship test launches have also failed, but Thursday’s launch reached further into space than the previous attempts.
Starship is part of Nasa’s plans to send humans to the moon again.
The rocket, which is the most powerful in the world, is also part of SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s vision to colonize Mars.