Elon Musk’s Starship SN15 Prototype Had Its First Successful Launch
The SpaceX team completed a successful high-altitude flight test from Starbase in Texas on May 5.
Shoot for the stars—if you’re Elon Musk, you might just land on them.
The tech mogul’s SpaceX rocket launched and landed its latest prototype, Starship serial number 15 (SN15) on Wednesday, marking the fifth high-altitude test of a Starship prototype and the first test which ended without the rocket being destroyed.
According to CNBC, the rocket flew as high as 33,000 feet before returning to the SpaceX landing pad in Boca Chica, Texas.
Musk tweeted after the event: “Starship landing nominal!”, referring to everything going according to plan.
While a small fire broke out at the landing base after launch, SN15 is the first SpaceX high-altitude rocket to make it back in one piece after the test flight.
Musk’s company is developing Starship to launch cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars, with each prototype standing at about 150 feet tall—the equivalent of a 15-story building—and a power-backing of three Raptor rocket engines.
Watch SpaceX’s Starship SN15 rocket take its high-altitude test flight below.