For those not familiar, the Starship is the next evolution of SpaceX’s fleet of rockets and spacecraft. This one will eventually take us to Mars and beyond. Yesterday’s test flight was a high-altitude test of the Starship spacecraft (serial number 8 or SN8). The test did not include the booster rocket which will eventually be used when a Starship blasts off to leave the earth.

Watch the full Video replay of the SpaceX Starship test flight below in this article.

The Starship is 160ft tall and has the ability to carry over 100 tons of payload. During a mission launch, Starship will sit atop a SpaceX Super Heavy booster rocket capable of 16 million pounds of thrust. With the two stacked for launch, the complete Starship System stands 394 feet tall.

“SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket (collectively referred to as Starship) represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.” – SpaceX.com

The test flight yesterday was to see if the Starship spacecraft could complete a number of important functions for flight and re-entry. As you can see in the video replay below, it started with a launch of Starship and a high-altitude climb. Next the vehicle transitioned into a landing phase.

Part of the landing phase included a spectacular transition from vertical flight into horizontal flight, using its wing-like fins for maneuvering.

As it neared the ground, the Starship transitioned back to a vertical position and initiated its landing burn.

Although the engines fired to execute the landing, the final descent rate at touchdown was a little higher than planned. The result was the explosion of the SpaceX Starship which has been the focus of video streamed online and on news broadcasts.

On its YouTube page SpaceX talks about the test flight. “On Wednesday, December 9, Starship serial number 8 (SN8) lifted off from our Cameron County launch pad and successfully ascended, transitioned propellant, and performed its landing flip maneuver with precise flap control to reach its landing point.”

“Low pressure in the fuel header tank during the landing burn led to high touchdown velocity resulting in a hard (and exciting!) landing. Thank you to all the locals supporting our efforts in Cameron County and beyond. Congratulations to the entire Starship and SpaceX teams on today’s test! Serial number 9 (SN9) is up next – Mars, here we come!”

The company, and its founder Elon Musk, were very pleased with the test flight despite the explosion. All phases of the flight went extremely well, proving that the system works.

The pressure issue in the header tank has now been identified and will be corrected. As any engineer will tell you, you often learn a lot more from a system failure than from a success. That’s why the call them ‘test’ flights.

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The 49-year old Musk’s increase in wealth came along with Tesla stock breaching $500B in market value. The boost in overall market value came as investors purchased stock in the run-up to the company addition in the S&P index. However, Tesla (TSLA) has also seen an unprecedented increase in market value this year, gaining six time its value in 2020.

Despite the coronavirus outbreak which put most automotive businesses on hold or pushed them into a steep market drop, Tesla managed not escape a near-death sentence and according to number, thrived.

Tesla is ranked as world’s most valuable car company, sitting comfortably far from second place, even with production figures that are only a fraction of what other auto giants are pushing now. Although other EV stocks have risen since president-elect Joe Biden’s statements about boosting EVs as a top priority were made public during his campaign, no other company surged the way Tesla did.

One of the Joe Biden platform underpinnings features a strong push for zero emission vehicles and clean energy sources by 2030. If put into practice correctly, it could see Tesla surging even further on the stock market and increasing Elon Musk’s fortune. This would in turn create the possibility of the 49-year old businessman to become the richest person alive.

At the moment, Jeff Bezos holds the title, with an estimated net worth of $181.3 billion.

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