SpaceX Starship’s Seventh Flight Ends With Ship Lost in Space

SpaceX, founded by American entrepreneur Elon Musk, announced the loss of the upper part of the Starship rocket during its seventh test flight on January 16.

SpaceX managed to pull off one of the most difficult parts of the Starship launch: returning the first stage of the Super Heavy to the launch pad, where it was picked up by a special Mechazilla tower with a special gripper, the so-called “chopsticks.” The booster returned just under 7 minutes after liftoff.

However, the success of Super Heavy was marred by the loss of Starship, which stopped transmitting telemetry shortly after the booster landed, eight minutes after liftoff.

“We’ve actually lost all communication with the ship — essentially what that tells us is that we have an anomaly with the upper stage,” said SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot.

This launch of Starship was the seventh test flight of the world’s largest and most powerful rocket. NASA has already booked two SpaceX rockets to take astronauts to the moon later this decade. Musk’s main goal now is to explore Mars.