Elon Musk's Starship goes 'farther than ever'

US company SpaceX's Starship rocket made a huge leap in progress in its third test flight on Thursday, completing nearly all its objectives.

The two-stage vehicle made a perfect getaway from its Texas launch site, to send its upper portion around the globe to a re-entry over the Indian Ocean.

Radio contact was lost towards the end but the firm said it was "incredible to see how far we got this time around".

SpaceX boss Elon Musk was delighted with the outcome of the flight, too.

He posted on X, formerly Twitter, that "Starship will take humanity to Mars".

The 120m-tall (395ft) vehicle launched in April and November last year but blew apart not long into the ascent.

Mr Musk was looking for significant progress from his SpaceX team this time - and he got it.

The rocket left its launch mount with a huge rumble from its 33 engines, and the vehicle then proceeded to step perfectly through all of the expected phases in the climb to space.

Separation of the bottom half, the booster, from the top half, the Ship, occurred right on cue.

The ship then powered on, crossing the Atlantic and southern Africa.

Video cameras on the Ship sent back spectacular views of Earth from more than 100 miles up.

Then came the task of re-entry, when the ship needed to come back down.

Video showed hot gases envelop the vehicle, just before radio contact was lost.

Controllers reported shortly after that the Ship had been lost, presumably because it had broken up.

That the Ship didn't survive re-entry will be a disappointment, but the SpaceX engineers will be more than satisfied that their development of the world's most powerful rocket is on track.

Starship is the most powerful rocket system ever to lift off Earth.

The 33 engines at the base of the Super Heavy booster produce 74 meganewtons of thrust. This dwarfs all previous vehicles, including those that sent men to the Moon in the 1960s/70s.

If SpaceX engineers can perfect Starship, it will be revolutionary.

It's intended to be fully and rapidly reusable, to operate much like an aeroplane that can be refuelled and put back in the air in quick order.

This capability, along with the heft to carry more than a hundred tonnes to orbit in one go, would radically lower the cost of space activity.

For Elon Musk, Starship is key to realising his long-held ambition of taking people and supplies to Mars to build a human settlement. It will also assist his Starlink project which is establishing a global network of broadband internet satellites.

There are thousands of Starlink spacecraft in orbit already, but later models will be larger and heavier and Starship will be needed to get them to space.

Starship is the most powerful rocket system ever to lift off Earth.

The 33 engines at the base of the Super Heavy booster produce 74 meganewtons of thrust. This dwarfs all previous vehicles, including those that sent men to the Moon in the 1960s/70s.

If SpaceX engineers can perfect Starship, it will be revolutionary.

It's intended to be fully and rapidly reusable, to operate much like an aeroplane that can be refuelled and put back in the air in quick order.

This capability, along with the heft to carry more than a hundred tonnes to orbit in one go, would radically lower the cost of space activity.

For Elon Musk, Starship is key to realising his long-held ambition of taking people and supplies to Mars to build a human settlement. It will also assist his Starlink project which is establishing a global network of broadband internet satellites.

There are thousands of Starlink spacecraft in orbit already, but later models will be larger and heavier and Starship will be needed to get them to space.