SpaceX loses contact with its Starship megarocket, but manages to catch up with its launcher

Just hours after the successful first launch of Jeff Bezos’ New Glenn rocket, Elon Musk’s SpaceX returned to the spotlight Thursday with a new test flight of Starship, the largest rocket ever constructed. 123 meters high, the size of a building of around 40 floors, Starship took off Thursday at 11:37 p.m. French time from its base in Texas.

SpaceX first managed to catch up with the first stage of its megarocket, a technical feat that it had so far only achieved once. After the separation of the two stages of the rocket, the booster named Super Heavy descended in a controlled manner towards the launch pad and was immobilized by mechanical arms installed on the launch tower, nicknamed “the chopsticks”according to the company’s video broadcast.

But a few minutes later, SpaceX lost contact with the second stage of the rocket, due to a «anomalies».

“Great progress”

“Good luck today!”had launched the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos to his rival Elon Musk on X. Earlier in the day, the boss of Tesla was quick to congratulate him “for reaching orbit on the first attempt!”with the New Glenn rocket, 98 meters high. An exchange of pleasantries which offends and raises questions, while Elon Musk even ventured to joke about their possible new friendship. The two richest men in the world founded their space companies in the early 2000s and have been competing for star power in the field ever since.

SpaceX, however, has taken a big lead over Blue Origin by adopting a different strategy and in certain aspects more risky, and has reigned for several years in the market for commercial orbital flights. A domination that Jeff Bezos seeks to challenge with his new New Glenn rocket.

“Colonize Mars”

Since the last test, “major improvements” have been made, SpaceX said on its site. The company prefers to take off imperfect rockets to learn in a real flight situation and then adapt its model. After the separation of the two stages of the rocket – the booster named Super Heavy and the Starship spacecraft giving the name to the whole – the company will therefore seek to return the booster to its launch pad.

Instead of then landing vertically as the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket does, the latter will have to be immobilized, without having touched the ground, by mechanical arms installed on the launch tower.