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Friday, March 29, 2024

Touchdown! SpaceX successfully lands Starship rocket

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SpaceX successfully landed its prototype Starship rocket at its Texas base on its fifth attempt, a livestream showed Wednesday.

The test flight represented a big win for Elon Musk's hard-charging space company after the last four tries ended in explosions.

"Starship landing nominal!" tweeted Musk.

"Nominal" means normal in the context of spaceflight.

The execution wasn't quite perfect, with a small fire engulfing the base of the 50 meter- (160 feet-) high space vessel shortly after landing.

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SpaceX webcaster John Insprucker explained this was "not unusual with the methane fuel we're using," adding engineers were still working out design issues.

The flames were quickly put out with a water cannon, footage showed.

Earlier, the rocket dubbed SN15 took off from the Starbase in Boca Chica, southern Texas at around 5:25 pm local time (2225 GMT), reached an altitude of around 10 kilometers (6 miles) and performed a series of flight maneuvers. 

SpaceX was facing added pressure to succeed with Wednesday's flight after NASA announced a version of Starship will be used as a lunar lander when the space agency returns humans to the Moon. 

The $2.9 billion contract is currently suspended after two rival companies, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Dynetics, lodged a protest.

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