Elon Musk Remains Optimistic Even Though Starship Is Missing After Reaching Orbit

JAKARTA - In a historic mission that ended tragically, SpaceX's Starship managed to reach orbit on Thursday, March 14 before finally disappearing upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

The Starship rocket launched from Boca Chica, Texas, managed to reach orbit for the first time. Unfortunately, contact with Starship disappeared while landing in the Indian Ocean, signaling a landing failure.

Despite this, this mission remains considered a partial success, as Starship managed to reach orbit, marking an important achievement for SpaceX.

Missions Run Smoothly To Orbit

The Starship, which consists of a two-stage rocket, is a Starship aircraft aboard a very large Super Heavy booster, taking off from the SpaceX test facility in Boca Chica, Texas at 09:25 ET.

About an hour later, SpaceX announced that Starship had successfully reached orbit. Starship reaches an altitude of about 233 kilometers above the Earth's surface with a top speed of about 24,140 kilometers per hour.

Starship Disappears When Entering The Atmosphere

However, that excitement broke out when SpaceX announced at around 10:35 p.m. ET that it had lost contact with Starship when it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

"The team has decided that the plane was missing, so there was no water landing today," said Dan Huot, SpaceX communications manager, during the live broadcast. But again, it's amazing to see how far we can go this time.

Starship is expected to collapse upon re-entering Earth's hot atmosphere. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has opened an investigation to determine the cause of the accident.

Hope Remains High

Despite losing Starship costing $3 billion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk remains optimistic about the future of Starship.

Congratulations profusely to the whole team for this amazing day, wrote Gwynne Shotwell, head of SpaceX operations, on social media. Clean launch, hot performance, Super Heavy boosters return and launch (and possibly multiple engines turn on during landing burning!), packaging and clean aircraft slides, cargo and propellant transfer cycles (will be confirmed!), and aircraft entries!

NASA administrator Bill Nelson also congratulated him. "Congratulations to @SpaceX for the successful test flight! Starship has slid into the sky. Together, we made a big step through Artemis to return humans to the Moon" then looked at Mars, "he wrote on social media.

Starship is an important part of SpaceX's plans for the future of reusable and affordable space transportation. Unlike the Saturn V rocket that takes astronauts to the moon, Starship (booster and everything), it is designed to be fully reusable once it returns to Earth in an effort to reduce costs.

The Road Is Still Long Towards Mars

The loss of Starship is a crushing blow to Elon Musk's ambition to bring humans to Mars. The planned moon landing mission in 2025 with Starship is also threatened with resignation.

However, success in reaching orbit is proof of SpaceX's rapid progress in Starship development. Experts hope that the FAA investigation can reveal the cause of the accident so that in the future Starship can fly safely and bring humans to Mars.