SpaceX Launches Most Powerful Rocket Ever Built

CBC News reports:

SpaceX’s huge Super Heavy-Starship rocket, by far the most powerful ever built, blasted off on its third test flight Thursday morning. The test aimed to boost the unpiloted upper stage into space on a sub-orbital hop to a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

The giant rocket’s 33 Raptor engines, gulping 40,000 pounds of liquid oxygen and methane propellants per second, thundered to life with a ground-shaking roar at 9:25 a.m. EDT and quickly throttled up to liftoff thrust.

A moment later, the 394-foot-tall rocket began climbing skyward, blasting through billowing clouds of dust and steam generated by the booster’s fiery exhaust vaporizing torrents of water being sprayed upward at the base of the pad to ease the shock of engine ignition.

Read the full article.