Pushing the boundaries for space exploration

SpaceX's heavy-lift launch vehicle, Starship, exploded about four minutes into its first orbital test flight last week.

The reusable rocket is designed to carry people and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon and Mars, and has a payload capacity of more than 100 tons. The Starship was the largest rocket launched by humans after the Cold War, with the strongest carrying capacity and the most innovative way of replenishment and recovery.

Despite the explosion, the Starship was the first to use the newly developed Raptor liquid-oxygen-methane engine, and it also applied a breakthrough design with 33 parallel engines.