Starship's new engines fly

At 33 engines firing in unison, the Super Heavy booster produced roughly 9,240 tonnes of thrust at liftoff, more than any rocket ever built. It still couldn't stick the return: minutes after separating, its boostback burn faltered and it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico at around 1,500 km/h. The upper stage fared better, releasing 22 Starlink stand-ins through a narrow nose slot and splashing down intact in the Indian Ocean about 66 minutes after launch.

What makes this flight a generational marker rather than another test is the hardware underneath it. This was the first vehicle of Starship's third version, and the first to fly the Raptor 3 engine — a redesign that pushes each engine about a fifth harder than before while stripping out external plumbing to shave weight. The whole point is the climb toward a vehicle that can carry 100-plus tonnes to orbit and fly back to be reused, the figure that would reset launch economics if SpaceX reaches it. The 44 tonnes flown here were deliberately a partial load on a deliberately short-of-orbit path.

Two of the dummy satellites weren't fully dead weight: nicknamed 'Dodger Dogs,' they carried cameras pointed back at Starship's own heat shield, rehearsing the in-flight self-inspection a reusable ship will need before it can be trusted to fly again. The booster loss keeps the catch-and-reuse milestone out of reach for now — but the engines and airframe that the whole program is betting on just logged their first flight.