SpaceX's Starship rocket just hit two key milestones on its most dramatic launch yet

Starship blasts off from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in Texas. SpaceX SpaceX's Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time and deployed working Starlink satellites. The landmark launch was full of drama, with an engine failure threatening to scrub the mission. Reaching orbit is a crucial step toward some of Elon Musk's most ambitious plans. SpaceX's Starship rocket just completed two key milestones in its riskiest launch yet. The 400-foot-tall rocket lifted off from SpaceX's Texas launch site at around 7:46 am Central Time on Monday, in a landmark launch that saw Starship reach Earth's orbit for the first time. The launch went smoothly, with Starship's massive booster stage returning to Earth in an apparent soft splashdown. The rocket's upper stage faced a more dramatic ascent, with an engine failure briefly putting Starship's push for orbit at risk. After a tense few moments on SpaceX's livestream, the company decided to continue the mission, and Starship reached orbit at around 8:15 am Central Time. Beyond reaching orbit for the first time, Starship's 14th launch also marks the first time that the megarocket has launched with real, revenue-generating cargo. After reaching orbit, Starship successfully deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the latest version of the low-earth orbit satellites that SpaceX uses to beam its Starlink internet service around the globe. In an X post, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hailed the flight as a success and said all 26 satellites were "operating nominally." Starship orbited the Earth before deploying its payload of Starlink satellites. SpaceX Unlike previous flights, SpaceX didn't catch Starship's giant booster in the chopstick arms of its launch tower when it returned to Earth. Instead, both the booster and Starship's upper stage were set to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. While that approach reduced the risk of things going wrong on landing, there were more potential failure points than in previous Starship missions. Starship needed to enter a stable orbit, deploy satellites, keep its systems working for nearly 10 hours, then reignite an engine to deorbit and survive a controlled reentry. After deploying the last of the satellites, SpaceX said that Starship would be de-orbited early and splash down in the Pacific after three hours circling the planet. Why Starship is so important for SpaceX Reaching orbit and deploying Starlink satellites are critical steps in Musk's ambitious plans for Starship, which the billionaire has said could launch as often as once a day within the next year. Launching larger V3 satellites on Starship, which has far greater capacity than SpaceX's Falcon 9, will allow the company to supersize its Starlink constellation. The satellite internet service has become one of the most lucrative parts of SpaceX's business, and was the source of the majority of the company's revenue last year. SpaceX has submitted plans to launch 100,000 Starlink satellites in the coming years, up from around 11,000, and Musk has said the satellite internet service could supply the majority of the world's internet in less than a decade. Meeting those ambitious goals, which underpin the $2 trillion market cap SpaceX secured after a record-breaking public listing in June, hinges on Starship flying regularly. Starship in flight. The rocket is crucial to SpaceX's future growth. SpaceX SpaceX executives have estimated that Starship, which, unlike the company's Falcon 9 rocket, will be fully reusable, could reduce the cost of launching cargo into space by up to 10 times compared to the Falcon 9. That will be critical in enabling SpaceX to build and service massive satellite constellations while still turning a profit, and opens the door for some of Musk's science fiction-inspired plans. SpaceX has indicated it aims to launch as many as 1 million satellites functioning as orbital data centers, with Musk betting that training large language models in space will give the company an edge in the AI race. The company has also made Starship a central part of its long-term plans to build a human (and robot) presence on the moon, and eventually settle on Mars. Read the original article on Business Insider