SpaceX launches Starship rocket on third test flight

The fate of Starship may be unknown. Teams on the ground lost contact with the vehicle after it plunged back toward Earth and re-entered the atmosphere.

The spacecraft appeared to make it through several crucial milestones. But we don't know if it made it all the way to the ocean in one piece.

SpaceX is now looking to gather data on all of that, said SpaceX’s Kate Tice.

“So far, all of that has gone really well,” she said. “We were trying to figure out today — how do we get Starship to survive orbital velocity, atmospheric entry? And we hope to find out soon.”

SpaceX's Dan Huot added:

The spacecraft isn't sharing data right now, said SpaceX's Dan Huot.

"We're still waiting to see if we're gonna get data back from the ship," he said. "We might be in a bit of a blackout period right now."

SpaceX confirmed that Starship was reentering Earth's atmosphere.

But SpaceX engineer Kate Tice cautioned that the vehicle might not make it all the way to its intended landing site in the Indian Ocean.

The Starship spacecraft is coated in about 18,000 lightweight, ceramic hexagonal tiles.

The scale-like coating on much of the ship is designed to protect the vehicle from the scorching-hot temperatures it endures as it plunges back into the Earth's atmosphere.

Starship is plunging back toward Earth. And the live stream just showed a vibrant halo of bright red glowing around the vehicle.

That was plasma — created by the extreme heat and pressure the Starship endures as it moves back into the thick atmosphere.

“The atmosphere is actually doing us a huge favor here by acting as a braking system for Starship,” notes Kate Tice, one of the hosts of SpaceX’s livestream.

SpaceX has made it through some crucial milestones. But the company just revealed it won't attempt to reignite Starship's engines after a half-hour coasting phase.

Starship is on a "pretty steep trajectory," said Dan Huot, a SpaceX communication manager said. That means Earth's gravity will rapidly drag Starship back toward Earth, whether or not engines are re-lit.

It's not clear why SpaceX decided to forgo that test.

Engineers noted a lot of data needs to be evaluated in the hours and days ahead.

Yet another key milestone was hit during this test flight.

The company shared footage of the checkout. These doors will have to open on future flights if Starship deploys satellites.

But SpaceX engineers said on the webcast they still need to do some "data reviews" on how the door action and the propellant transfer demo went.

SpaceX just shared on the social media platform X that a propellant transfer demo planned for this flight is finished.

If successful, it's yet another massive win for the company.

The goal is to move some of the propellant on board the Starship vehicle from one tank to another, according to a December email from NASA explaining the test.

SpaceX engineers designed that demo to begin hashing out how Starship will be refueled on future missions while it’s in orbit. It could take more than a dozen refueling flights to get Starship to the moon.

NASA previously told CNN that SpaceX could receive more than $50 million for completing this test.

The SpaceX livestream is turning some heads with its surprising choice in music, which is entertaining listeners as the Starship spacecraft coasts through space before reigniting its engines.

Currently, the song is "Caribbean Cruise" by Werner Tautz.

Thomas Zurbuchen, the former associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, chimed in about the tunes.

SpaceX — and NASA — have huge goals for this rocket.

NASA wants to use Starship to carry out the final leg of the journey to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time in five decades as part of its Artemis program. The space agency gave SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract in 2021 to get the job done, and it inked another $1 billion deal after that.

Starship is also the linchpin of SpaceX's goal of getting humans to Mars. The company's founding purpose is to make humans a multi-planetary species, sending them to live on other planets in case Earth becomes unsuitable for life.

That task would require a truly massive rocket.

Whether that goal is feasible — economically, technologically and politically — remains to be seen. But Musk and SpaceX have garnered a diehard fanbase rallied around the idea.

Other items on the agenda for Starship: