- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Thousands march for Palestinians ahead of Oct 7 anniversary
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
SpaceX's Starship mega rocket launches on third test flight
The world's most powerful rocket Starship successfully blasted on its third test flight Thursday, in a live streamed event watched by two million people.
Lift-off from SpaceX's Starbase in southeast Texas came around 8:25 am local time (1325 GMT).
The mega rocket is vital to NASA's plans for landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade -- and Elon Musk's hopes of eventually colonizing Mars.
Two previous attempts have ended in spectacular explosions, though that's not necessarily a bad thing: The company has adopted a rapid trial-and-error approach in order to accelerate development, and the strategy has brought success in the past.
When the two stages of Starship are combined, the rocket stands 397 feet (121 meters) tall -- beating the Statue of Liberty by a comfortable 90 feet.
Its Super Heavy Booster produces 16.7 million pounds (74.3 Meganewtons) of thrust, almost double that of the world's second most powerful rocket, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) -- though the latter is now certified, while Starship is still a prototype.
Starship's third launch test in its fully stacked configuration is set to be its most ambitious yet.
Objectives include opening and closing Starship's payload door to test its ability to deliver satellites and other cargo into space.
SpaceX also aims to re-light the ship's engines in space, and perform an onboard test that will help pave the way for future Starships to refuel one another in orbit.
Starship's planned trajectory sees it fly halfway around the globe, brake in the atmosphere, then freefall to the Indian Ocean, just over an hour after launch, and probably break up and explode on impact. Soft splashdowns are planned for future tests.
SpaceX has been developing prototypes of Starship since 2018, and early tests involved short hops of just the upper stage, which is also referred to as Starship.
- Third time lucky? -
The first so-called "integrated" test came in April 2023. SpaceX was forced to blow up Starship within a few minutes of launch, because the two stages failed to separate.
The rocket disintegrated into a ball of fire and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, sending a dust cloud over a town several miles (kilometers) away.
The second test in November 2023 fared slightly better: The booster separated from the spaceship, but both then exploded over the ocean, in what the company euphemistically called a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
The FAA closed a probe into the incident last month after identifying 17 corrective actions SpaceX needed to make.
SpaceX's "rapid iterative development" strategy has paid off for the company in the past.
Its Falcon 9 rockets have come to be workhorses for NASA and the commercial sector, its Dragon capsule sends astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, and its Starlink internet satellite constellation now covers dozens of countries.
But the clock is ticking down for SpaceX to be ready for NASA's planned return of astronauts to the Moon in 2026, using a modified Starship as the lander vehicle.
Not only does SpaceX need to prove it can launch, fly and land Starship safely -- it must eventually also show it can send multiple "Starship tankers" into orbit to refuel a main Starship for its onward journey to the Moon.
P.M.Smith--AMWN