Third test flight of SpaceX's mega rocket ends with loss of spacecraft
New Mexico, Mar 14: SpaceX's mega rocket blasted off on another test flight on Thursday and made it farther than two previous attempts, but the spacecraft was lost as it descended back to Earth.
The company said it lost contact with the spacecraft as it neared its goal, a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, about an hour after liftoff from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.
Two test flights last year both ended in explosions minutes after liftoff.
Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, headed out over the Gulf of Mexico after launch Thursday. Minutes later, the booster separated seamlessly from the spaceship and splashed down into the gulf and the spacecraft continued eastward. No people or satellites were on board.
An hour later, SpaceX commentators said contact had been lost with the spacecraft.
"The ship has been lost. So no splashdown today," said SpaceX's Dan Huot. "But again, it's incredible to see how much further we got this time around."
Earlier during the flight, SpaceX's Elon Musk had congratulated his team."SpaceX has come a long way," Musk said via X, former Twitter. The rocket company was founded exactly 22 years ago Thursday.
The rocket and futuristic-looking spacecraft towers 397 feet (121 meters), easily exceeding NASA's past and present moon rockets.
NASA watched with keen interest: The space agency needs Starship to succeed in order to land astronauts on the moon in the next two or so years. This new crop of moonwalkers the first since last century's Apollo program will descend to the lunar surface in a Starship, at least the first couple times.
Starship re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Views through the plasma pic.twitter.com/HEQX4eEHWH
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14, 2024
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Shivaji statue collapse case: HC grants bail to consultant Chetan Patil
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to consultant Chetan Patil arrested in connection with the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj''s statue at Rajkot fort in Malvan in August.
A 35-foot statue of the iconic Maratha warrior king collapsed in Sindhudurg district on August 26, nearly nine months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled it on Navy Day.
Patil was arrested on August 30 from Kolhapur.
A single bench of Justice A S Kilor on Thursday held that no case was made out to implicate Patil in the case as he had not been appointed as the structural designer of the statue.
The bench further said Patil had only submitted a structural stability report of the pedestal of the statue and the pedestal was intact even after the collapse.
Another accused, Jaydeep Apte, who was the sculptor and contractor, was also arrested in the case. The HC said it would hear his bail plea on November 25.
The Sindhudurg police had registered an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for negligence and other offences last month against Apte and Patil for the statue's collapse.
Patil and Apte moved HC seeking bail after a sessions court rejected their pleas.
