- Elon Musk launched the sixth test of his SpaceX rocket
- Donald Trump joined the world’s richest man for the launch
- But the Space X rocket failed to land
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, launched the sixth test of his SpaceX rocket with the US President-elect Donald Trump joining him to watch the launch – but sadly failed to land.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been set up to make space travel more efficient and cheaper. The purpose behind his deep space project is to make rockets reusable by being able to land again.
Donald Trump joining him to watch the launch
The president-elect travels to Texas with SpaceX CEO to watch the latest test of the billionaire’s Starship rocket.
Trump’s attendance is part of a growing bond with Musk – the owner of SpaceX, the electric carmaker Tesla and the social media platform X – who is a strong political supporter, having spent close to $130m to help get the former president re-elected.
Musk launches SpaceX Starship rocket with Trump
The rocket lifted off shortly after 5pm (23:00 GMT), but SpaceX chose to abort a planned attempt to catch the first-state booster of the rocket using the ‘chopstick’ technique, instead allowing it to fall into the ocean.
The last Starship test flight in October made headlines after the Super Heavy booster made a stunning return to the launch site where it was captured midair by a pair of giant mechanical “chopstick” arms attached to SpaceX’s launch tower.
Trump and Musk travelled to Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday to attend the launch of the giant Starship rocket at SpaceX’s test site in nearby Boca Chica.