
Todd Smith
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SpaceX’s tenth launch of its gargantuan Starship rocket went off without an apparent hitch on Tuesday.
After launching from a SpaceX base in south Texas, the 400-foot tall rocket hurtled into space and successfully deployed a collection of dummy satellites modeled on those that support SpaceX’s Starlink wireless internet service. Before that, the booster stage of Starship separated from the rocket and, as planned, executed a “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico after conducting a brief engine test.
In addition to deploying its payload in space—the first time SpaceX has managed to do so with Starship—the upper stage of the rocket achieved other milestones, successfully relighting one of its engines in space before plummeting back to Earth and flipping upright shortly before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
It was a welcome result for a rocket that SpaceX’s CEO and founder Elon Musk hopes will eventually allow humanity to colonize Mars. Previous test launches of the rocket have experienced a variety of problems, some of which resulted in explosions of portions of Starship. In June, the upper stage of the rocket exploded on the ground in Texas, seriously damaging a SpaceX test facility.
spacex.com/launches/stars..

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SpaceX
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
