SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off from the company's Boca Chica launchpad in Texas. Reuters
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SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 massive Raptor engines on the first-stage booster in February but the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket were being flown together for the first time.
The integrated test flight was intended to assess their performance in combination.
The launch was initially scheduled for Monday but was postponed until Thursday because of a frozen pressure valve on the first-stage booster.
Musk had warned ahead of the test that technical issues were likely and sought to play down expectations for the inaugural flight.
"It's the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket. There's a million ways this rocket could fail," he said.
"The team is working around the clock on many issues. Maybe 4/20, maybe not," Musk said.
NASA will take astronauts to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.
Starship is both bigger and more powerful than SLS and capable of lifting a payload of more than 100 metric tonnes into orbit.
It generates 17 million pounds of thrust, more than twice that of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
The plan for the integrated test flight was for the Super Heavy booster to separate from Starship after launch and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.
They failed to separate however and the booster rocket and Starship spacecraft began spinning out of control, exploding four minutes into the test flight in what SpaceX euphemistically called a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
Had separation occurred, Starship, which has six engines of its own, was to continue to an altitude of nearly 150 miles, completing a near-circle of the Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii about 90 minutes after launch.
"If we get far enough away from the launchpad before something goes wrong then I think I would consider that to be a success," Musk said prior to the test. "Just don't blow up the launchpad."
SpaceX foresees eventually putting a Starship into orbit, and then refueling it with another Starship so it can continue on a journey to Mars or beyond.
The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the "path to being a multi-planet civilization," according to Musk.
"That's our goal. I think we've got a chance."
Agence France-Presse