Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful rocket, bringing the company one step closer to colonizing Mars.
The 400-foot-tall Starship lifted off at 8:50 a.m. ET from Boca Chia, Texas, for the fourth flight test that will see the craft reach orbit before re-entering the atmosphere and making a hard landing in the Indian Ocean.
Starship is intended to be the first spacecraft to reach the Red Planet, and Musk previously proclaimed that it will “take humanity to Mars.”
Although last month’s launch marked a major milestone in reaching orbit, it exploded upon re-entry, leading people to question whether it is capable of making the trip.
SpaceX’s mission plan does not include recovering the rocket from the Indian Ocean after landing.
Starship is intended to be the first spacecraft to reach the Red Planet, and Musk previously proclaimed that it will “take humanity to Mars.”
In 2020, Musk revealed his plan for Starship to send humans to Mars.
It calculated that to put a million humans on the Red Planet in 2025, its rockets would need to make about three flights per day and a total of 1,000 flights a year, but 2025 is just around the corner.
The billionaire previously renewed his promise to colonize the Martian world in a post on X last month.
‘I’m going to colonize Mars. “My mission in life is to make humanity a multiplanetary civilization,” the post said.
Musk reposted the message from his personal account with the accompanying words: “Only if civilization lasts long enough.”
A day before the mission, former President Barack Obama spoke at a renewable energy conference in Paris and mentioned “tycoons, many of whom are building spaceships” that could take humans to Mars.
“But when I hear some people talk about the plan to colonize Mars because the Earth’s environment can degrade so much that it becomes uninhabitable, I look at them like, what are you talking about?” he continued.
“I would prefer that we invest here in the care of this planet.”
While Thursday’s mission did not end as planned, the test flight was the furthest ever conducted with a Starship rocket.
Starship, the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built, achieved a key first objective: the successful separation of its Super Heavy booster.
