SpaceX Starship Lost on Return to Earth after Completing Most of Test Flight

SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, US March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, US March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
TT

SpaceX Starship Lost on Return to Earth after Completing Most of Test Flight

SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, US March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, US March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

SpaceX's Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight to space on its third try on Thursday but was destroyed during its return to Earth after making it farther than ever before.
During a live webcast of the flight, SpaceX commentators said mission control lost communications with the spacecraft during its atmospheric re-entry at hypersonic speed. The vehicle was nearing a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch from south Texas.
A few minutes later, SpaceX confirmed that the spacecraft had been "lost," presumably either burning up or coming apart during re-entry or crashing into the sea, Reuters reported.
For reasons that were left unclear, SpaceX opted to skip one of the test flight's core objectives - an attempt to re-ignite one of Starship's Raptor engines while it coasted in a shallow orbit. That milestone is considered key to its future success.
Still, completion of many of Starship's intended flight objectives represented a milestone in the development of a spacecraft crucial to the growing satellite launch business of SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, and NASA's moon program.
NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on what he called "a successful test flight" in a statement posted on social media platform X. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an X post the test marked an "incredible day."
The two-stage spacecraft, consisting of the Starship cruise vessel mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, blasted off from the company's Starbase launch site near Boca Chica Village on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The upper-stage Starship reached peak altitudes of 145 miles (234 km).
The spacecraft far exceeded its two past performances, both of which were cut short by explosions minutes after launch. The company had acknowledged in advance a high probability that its latest flight might similarly end with the spacecraft's demise before the mission profile was finished.
SpaceX's engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry's more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.



Pakistan Bans Entry to Parks, Zoos as Air Pollution Worsens

A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
TT

Pakistan Bans Entry to Parks, Zoos as Air Pollution Worsens

A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)

Pakistan's Punjab banned entry to many public spaces from Friday, including parks and zoos, as it sought to protect people from severe air pollution in parts of the eastern province.

The provincial capital Lahore has been engulfed in a thick, smoky haze this week and was consistently rated the world's most polluted city by Swiss group IQAir in its live rankings, prompting the closure of schools and work-from-home mandates, Reuters reported.

The Punjab government's Friday order placed a "complete ban on public entry in all parks ... zoos, play grounds, historical places, monuments, museums and joy/play lands" until Nov. 17 in areas including Lahore.

Many parts of South Asia suffer severe pollution as temperatures drop each winter and cold, heavy air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from stubble burning - the illegal practice of burning crop waste to quickly clear fields.

Punjab last week blamed toxic air wafting in from neighboring India - where air quality has also reached hazardous levels - for the particularly high pollution this year.

IQAir rated the Indian capital New Delhi the world's second most polluted city on Friday, with government data indicating that farm fires in the neighboring farming states of Punjab and Haryana were among the major contributors.
To discourage the practice which has been lower this year, India's federal government doubled fines imposed on violators on Wednesday.

Farmers with less than two acres of land will now have to pay 5,000 rupees ($60) for violations. Those owning between two and five acres will pay 10,000 rupees and farmers with more than five acres will pay 30,000 rupees, the environment ministry said.