(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its sixth Starship test flight to space on Tuesday from Texas, eyeing an array of improvements on the rocket as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump watched in person.
The roughly 400-foot-tall (122-meter-tall) rocket system, designed to land astronauts on the moon and ferry crews to Mars, lifted off at 4 p.m. CT (2200 GMT) from SpaceX’s sprawling rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas.
The first stage, called Super Heavy, is due to return to land by falling into giant mechanical arms on its launch tower, while Starship travels around Earth for a planned daytime splashdown in the Indian Ocean some 90 minutes later.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham and Sandra Maler)
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