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SpaceX conducted the sixth flight test of its massive Starship rocket on Tuesday afternoon, and although the company did not repeat the historic booster experiment, the company welcomed a very special guest: President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump, who will soon be sworn in for a second term. He said on X He was heading to Texas to witness “the launch of the largest object ever to be lifted, not just into space, but simply by lifting it off the ground.”
His visit is the latest sign of the growing cozy relationship between him and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was recently appointed to head the newly created Office of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), alongside businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. It’s unclear how much authority the office will have (it appears to be purely advisory), but based on Musk’s public statements, it could help drive widespread changes to key federal government programs.
Trump’s visit was also a sign of encouragement for SpaceX’s Starship program, which the company says has been hampered by the kind of government inefficiencies Musk is looking to reduce with DOGE — specifically, slow turnaround times for launch license approvals by the US federal aviation authority. administration.
Trump said he wants to enable SpaceX to get to Mars before the end of that period — which might be possible in theory, given that the next transition period between Mars and Earth will be in 2026 — and essentially gave his blessing to Musk’s Mars dreams: “Get it.” Go ahead, launch that spaceship, Elon,” he said at a rally on October 24.
Tuesday’s flight test, the sixth in the spacecraft development program, did not include any surprising surprises or surprising disappointments. The company was planning to try to attach the 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster to the arms of the massive launch tower, as it did during the fifth test in October, but the company said the booster did not exceed “compliance standards.” The mission director is required to authorize the attempt. Instead, the missile landed in a specific area in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX achieved at least one new milestone during this test: Starship’s upper stage, also called Starship, reignited one of its engines in space for the first time. It is a capability that will be key to enabling the reuse of the upper stage in orbit, as well as the booster.
SpaceX has made rapid progress on its Starship development program since the first fully integrated rocket debuted in April 2023. The nearly 400-foot-tall vehicle is the cornerstone of the company’s plans to transport crew and cargo to interplanetary destinations. And also to NASA’s plans to return humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era.
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