The first successful flight for Starship – the biggest and heaviest rocket ever built – has revived US hopes of beating China in the race back to the moon, but experts warned the breakthrough may not be enough to stop Beijing from building the first lunar base.
After months of failed attempts, Tuesday’s test saw both stages of the SpaceX rocket splash down nearly intact – a milestone for the vehicle that Nasa is counting on for the first crewed American moon return mission since Apollo.
Nasa acting administrator Sean Duffy wrote on social media that Flight 10’s success “paves the way for the Starship Human Landing System that will bring American astronauts back to the moon on Artemis III”.
“This is a great day for Nasa and our commercial space partners,” he wrote.
Starship’s lunar lander variant is designed to ferry astronauts from the moon’s orbit to the surface and back for the Artemis III mission, which is targeting 2027 for its departure – a timeline that Duffy insisted was realistic and vital to beating China.
“We won the first space race, and we’re going to win today’s space race, and tomorrow’s space race,” he told CBS Evening News after the Starship test flight.
