Starship’s first flight ends before separation, leaving key tests ahead

SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy lifted off together from South Texas on April 20, but the test ended before the stages separated. In the company’s launch webcast, presenters described the stack rotating and then breaking apart. They said the cause wasn’t yet known.

Photograph: SpaceX’s Hawthorne premises, 28 September 2012, not the Starship launch site. SpaceX / Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Display versions are cropped; the original photograph is preserved.

Recovery wasn’t planned for this attempt. The webcast described intended hard water landings for both vehicles. That separates the flight’s development objectives from a demonstration of the fully reusable system SpaceX intends to build.

The lunar programme has further requirements. In its November 2022 contract announcement, NASA said SpaceX would conduct an uncrewed Moon-landing demonstration before carrying astronauts on Artemis III. A separate contract option covers a more capable lander for later missions, including docking with Gateway and accommodating four crew members.

That makes the connection to Artemis important without making today’s vehicle a completed lunar lander. The integrated launch is an early test in a development programme whose lunar demonstration and crew-carrying requirements remain ahead.