“The successful launch builds on two Starship test flights last year that achieved some, but not all, of their objectives and appears to put the privately funded rocket program on course to begin launching satellites, allowing SpaceX to ramp up the already-blistering pace of Starlink deployments.
‘Starship reached orbital velocity!’ wrote Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, on his social media platform X. ‘Congratulations SpaceX team!!’
SpaceX scored several other milestones with Thursday’s test flight, including a test of Starship’s payload bay door, which would open and shut on future flights to release satellites into orbit. A preliminary report from SpaceX also indicated Starship transferred super-cold liquid oxygen propellant between two tanks inside the rocket, a precursor test ahead of more ambitious in-orbit refueling tests planned in the coming years.”
From Ars Technica.