SpaceX Sends Its Starship Spacecraft Into Earth Orbit for the First Time
Elon Musk's SpaceX achieved a milestone on September 28 when its Starship spacecraft reached stable Earth orbit for the first time, also successfully deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites.
American billionaire Elon Musk's company SpaceX has for the first time sent its Starship spacecraft into full Earth orbit. The launch took place on September 28 at 7:49 a.m. local time from the Starbase launch site in Texas, the BBC reports.
This was the 14th test flight of Starship. All previous flights had been suborbital, meaning the spacecraft reached space but failed to gain sufficient speed or remain there long enough to enter a stable orbit.
Engine Shutdown and Flight Continuation
About 18 minutes after liftoff, one of the spacecraft's engines unexpectedly shut down. Within just a few minutes, however, SpaceX announced that engineers had reassessed the situation and given approval for the flight to continue.
A Historic Achievement in Orbit
Less than half an hour after launching from the Texas spaceport, Starship reached a stable Earth orbit for the first time in history. The spacecraft then successfully deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites into space.
The mission had originally been planned to last around ten hours, during which Starship would complete roughly six orbits of Earth. However, mission control decided to bring the spacecraft back to Earth much earlier than planned, about three hours after the flight began.
