SpaceX's Starship mega rocket blasts off on its most complex test flight yet

SpaceX’s colossal Starship rocket blasted off Thursday on its most complex test flight yet, with Elon Musk looking to repeat a booster capture with giant mechanical arms and adding a new twist.

The 400-foot (123-meter) rocket soared from the southern tip of Texas, heading out over the Gulf of Mexico in late afternoon.

Founder and CEO Musk aimed to score another booster grab at the launch pad several minutes into the flight, replicating last October's feat. SpaceX beefed up the catch tower after a retry the following month ended up damaging sensors on the chopstick-like arms, forcing the team to forgo a capture attempt. The booster was steered into the gulf instead.

SpaceX insisted everything had to be perfect in order for the booster to return to the launch site at Boca Chica Beach near the Mexican border. This booster was the first to use a recycled engine — one from October's successful catch.

The company also upgraded the spacecraft for the latest demo, packing it with 10 dummy satellites for release in space. They're the same size as SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites and will follow the same flight path as the spacecraft, ending up destroyed upon entry. The spacecraft will ditch into the Indian Ocean to close out the hourlong mission.

Musk plans to launch actual Starlinks on Starships before moving on to other satellites and, eventually, crews.

It was the seventh test flight for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket. NASA has reserved a pair of Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. Musk’s goal is Mars.

“Every Starship launch is one more step closer towards Mars,” Musk said via X ahead of liftoff.

Hours hours earlier in Florida, another billionaire's rocket company — Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin — launched the newest supersized rocket, New Glenn. The rocket reached orbit on its first flight, successfully placing an experimental satellite thousands of miles above Earth. But the first-stage booster was destroyed, missing its targeted landing on a floating platform in the Atlantic.

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