The facts
SpaceX launched its massive Starship on Monday and placed it into orbit, delivering 26 of the latest Starlink satellites. The flight was intended to last about ten hours with six full Earth laps, but an engine shut down early on ascent. After a couple of laps, flight controllers chose to end the mission early, citing an “abundance of caution.” The vehicle re‑entered over the Pacific, splashed down north of Hawaii, tipped over and burst into flames three hours after liftoff. This was Starship’s 14th full‑scale launch from Texas in three years. The rocket’s first‑stage booster was not meant to return to the launch site and fell into the Gulf of Mexico shortly after launch. SpaceX said the early termination was a safety decision, and the company is working on heat‑shield upgrades for future flights.
Our take
Elon Musk’s giant reusable dick of a rocket finally made it to orbit on its fourteenth try, only to prove it still can’t stick the landing without turning the Pacific into a flaming mess. One engine died early, the rest kept humming, yet the ten‑hour, six‑lap rehearsal was scrapped after a couple of laps because some nervous fuck at SpaceX decided “abundance of caution” meant torching the ocean instead of finishing the test. The vehicle tipped over and erupted like every previous test, but this time it actually delivered twenty‑six fancy Starlink satellites before becoming a fireball. NASA’s own folks praised the effort as “inspirational,” which in plain English means: please don’t crash this thing when we need it to dock with Orion and Blue Moon next summer. Musk has already joked that if debris rains down on people his popularity would tank, yet he’s now promising the next flight might be caught by giant mechanical arms with “even or slightly better odds.” That level of caution - ending a mission early and letting a 124‑metre rocket become a charred bobbing wreck - doesn’t inspire confidence for Artemis III’s triple‑launch ballet. If this is the benchmark for success after fourteen attempts, the upcoming moon‑return mission is set to be a pure comedy of errors, with a rocket that can reach orbit only to choose a spectacular, self‑inflicted demise rather than finish the job.
