Technologies

What a Fusion Energy Breakthrough Means for Green Power

Four times now, researchers have produced a fleeting burst of fusion energy, an encouraging sign for making this zero-carbon energy source a reality.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who achieved a major fusion milestone a year ago have repeated it three times more. Each experiment used 192 lasers to ignite a fusion reaction that for a fleeting moment produced more energy than was used to trigger it.

Fusion powers the sun, and humans reproduced the process more than 70 years ago to power thermonuclear weapons. The scientific and engineering challenges of a controlled fusion reaction, though, are formidable. The repeated successes by the scientists at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, gradually increasing the laser power that causes a tiny fusion fuel pellet to implode, are important steps of progress toward sustained, controlled fusion.

«Higher laser energy can help achieve a more stable implosion, resulting in higher yields,» said Jean-Michel Di Nicola, a NIF leader, in a statement after the fourth fusion success on Oct. 30.

But what do the experiments mean for science and for the dream of a new energy source that would power our homes and cars without releasing any carbon dioxide?

In short, it’s fine to applaud the NIF achievements, but they don’t mean a green energy revolution is imminent. It’ll still be years before fusion power progress bears fruit — likely a decade or so — and it’s still not clear if fusion will ever be cheap enough to radically transform our power grid. Continuing today’s investments in solar and wind is critical to combating climate change.

Commercial fusion ventures applauded the NIF experiment and have made gradual progress since then. Commonwealth Fusion Systems opened a new headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, where it’s building an experimental reactor designed to produce power. Tokamak Energy and General Fusion announced new facilities to be built near Oxford in the UK. Microsoft has agreed to buy fusion power from a Helion Energy plant called Constellation scheduled to go online in 2028. Other startups like Zap Energy and TAE Technologies are touting progress, too.

Here’s a look at what’s happened and what’s still to come.

What is fusion?

Fusion occurs when two lighter elements like hydrogen or helium merge into a single, heavier element. This nuclear reaction releases a lot of energy, as exhibited by the biggest fusion furnace around, the sun.

It’s harder to get fusion to occur on Earth, though, because atomic nuclei are positively charged and therefore repel each other. The sun’s enormous mass produces tremendous pressure that overcomes that repulsion, but on Earth, other forces are required.

Two general approaches to squeeze atoms together and produce fusion are called inertial and magnetic confinement. Inertial confinement usually uses lasers to zap a pellet with a lot of power, triggering an explosion that compresses the fusion fuel. That’s the method NIF uses.

The other approach uses magnetic fields. It’s more widespread among companies trying to commercialize fusion energy.

What did the experiment at NIF accomplish?

In December 2022, a NIF experiment crossed a critical threshold for fusion where the energy that the fusion reaction generated — 3.15 million joules — exceeded the 2.05 megajoules from the lasers to trigger the reaction. Because much more energy is required to run the lasers, though, the reaction overall is highly inefficient.

Fusion researchers denote the ratio of output energy to input energy with the letter Q, and the December 2022 reaction was the first time a fusion reaction surpassed Q = 1. On July 20, Oct. 8 and Oct. 30 of this year, NIF repeated its success in which Q was greater than 1. The Oct. 30 experiment used a record amount of laser power, 2.2 megajoules, an improvement that’s difficult since the lasers can destroy the optical equipment that guide their light.

«It’s all about the control of the damage,» said NIF operations leader Bruno Van Wonterghem in a statement. «Too much energy without proper protection, and your optics blow to pieces.»

Fusion reactors will have to reach a threshold of Q = 10 before energy generation is practical. That’s what everybody is aiming for, including another massive government-funded project called ITER in France. And fusion reactors will have to reach Q = 10 much more frequently than NIF can.

In some ways, these are academic milestones, which fusion experiments have nudged toward for decades. But given fusion’s reputation for not ever getting there, it’s an important proof of what’s possible. Think a little bit more carefully before you repeat that oft-quoted snarky remark that fusion is the energy source of the future and always will be.

What does the NIF experiment mean for green power?

Not a huge amount, for a few reasons. For one thing, most commercial fusion energy projects are using various forms of magnetic confinement, not NIF’s laser-based approach, so the engineering challenges are different. For another, NIF is a gargantuan, $3.5 billion national lab project funded to research nuclear weapons, not a project designed to produce reliable energy for the grid at the most competitive cost.

«Don’t expect future fusion plants to look anything like NIF,» said Princeton researcher Wilson Ricks in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Huge inefficiencies in NIF’s lasers and in the conversion of fusion heat to electrical power mean its design is inherently impractical. In comparison, «magnetic confinement fusion holds some real promise,» Ricks tweeted.

Lowering fusion’s cost is critical to its success since it’ll have to compete against zero-carbon alternatives like today’s fission-based nuclear reactors that can generate a steady supply of power and renewables like wind and solar that are cheaper but intermittent.

«Fusion’s first competitor is fission,» researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory concluded in an October research paper, not yet peer reviewed, that assesses fusion’s prospects on the electrical grid. They expect that if fusion’s high costs can come down enough, it could replace the need for future fission plants, and if lowered further, could also compete against the combination of solar and energy storage.

NIF is a big, complicated site. If fusion power plants can be built in cheaper, smaller units that are more like something coming off a factory line, production costs should decrease. That’s thanks to a phenomenon called Wright’s Law, the experience curve or the learning curve, which has steadily lowered costs for solar and wind. The bigger and more customized a fusion plant is, the less costs will drop and the less competitive fusion will be.

Are there some less direct benefits from NIF’s results?

Yes. Scientists could benefit somewhat from the NIF experiment by updating fusion physics models to account for the fact that it’s supplying its own heat instead of relying on external sources, said Andrew Holland, chief executive of the Fusion Industry Association, an advocacy group for the industry.

And the attention could help, too, especially given longrunning skepticism about fusion energy.

TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer called NIF’s result «a huge stepping stone into the dawn of the fusion age,» and said it’s an important illustration that fusion energy really is plausible.

Investors have noticed, too. Downloads of the Fusion Industry Association’s annual report, which details the $4.8 billion in venture capital investments in fusion energy startups, increased tenfold after the first NIF achievement was announced, Holland said. Many of those requesting it are from investment firms, he added.

How does fusion work at NIF?

NIF triggers fusion using 192 powerful infrared lasers with a combined energy level of 4 megajoules — about the same as a two-ton truck traveling at 100 mph. That’s converted first into 2 megajoules of ultraviolet light, then into X-rays that strike a peppercorn-sized pellet of fusion fuel.

The intense X-rays cause the outer layer of the pellet to blow off explosively, compressing the pellet interior and triggering fusion. The heat from that fusion sustains the reaction until it runs out of fuel or becomes lopsided and falters.

Nuclei? Hydrogen? Catch me up on atomic physics, please

Sure! Here’s a quick refresher.

Everything on Earth is made of tiny atoms, each consisting of a central nucleus and a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The nucleus is made of neutrons and positively charged protons. The more protons in the nucleus, the heavier the element is.

Hydrogen usually has one proton and one electron. An unusual variety called deuterium has a neutron, too, and using nuclear reactors or fusion reactors, you can make a third variety called tritium with two neutrons.

Chemical reactions, like iron rusting or wood burning, occur when those positive and electrical charges cause atoms to interact. In comparison, nuclear reactions occur when the nuclei of atoms split apart or join together. Here on Earth, it’s harder to marshal the required forces to get nuclear reactions to take place, which is why it’s easier to make a steam engine than a nuclear bomb.

When you heat atoms up enough, they get so energetic that the electrons are stripped loose. The resulting cloud of negatively charged electrons and positively charged nuclei is called a plasma, a more exotic state of matter than the solids, liquids and gases that we’re used to at room temperature here on Earth.

The sun is made of plasma, and fusion reactors need it, too, to get those hydrogen nuclei to bounce around energetically enough. A convenient property of plasmas is that their electrically charged particles can be manipulated with magnetic fields. That’s crucial to many fusion reactor designs.

What do you use for fusion fuel?

NIF and most other fusion projects use the two heavy versions of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, called DT fuel. But there are other options, including hydrogen-boron and deuterium-helium-3, a form of helium with only one neutron instead of the more common two.

To get deuterium and tritium to fuse, you need to heat a plasma up to a whopping temperature of about 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). Other reactions are even higher, for example about a billion degrees for hydrogen-boron fusion.

Deuterium can be filtered out of ordinary water, but tritium, which decays away radioactively over a few years, is harder to come by. It can be manufactured in nuclear reactors and, in principle, in future fusion reactors, too. Managing tritium is complex, though, because it’s used to boost nuclear weapon explosions and thus is carefully controlled.

How do you turn that fusion reaction into power?

The deuterium-tritium fusion reaction produces fast-moving solo neutrons. Their kinetic energy can be captured in a «blanket» of liquid that surrounds the fusion reactor chamber and heats up as the neutrons collide.

That heat is then transferred to water that boils and powers conventional steam turbines. That technology is well understood, but nobody has yet connected it to a fusion reactor. Indeed the first generation of fusion power reactors being built today are designed to exceed Q=1, but not to capture power. That’ll wait for the pilot plants that are expected to arrive in the next wave of development.

Is fusion work funded by the government or the private sector?

Both. NIF is funded by the US government’s nuclear weapons program. Government funding also pays for the Joint European Torus in the UK and ITER in France, both of which are more closely aligned with the goal of fusion energy generation.

But increasingly fusion energy is privately funded. Investors have poured $4.8 billion total into fusion energy startups, of which $2.8 billion arrived in the last year, according to the Fusion Industry Association’s annual report published earlier in 2022. Most of that went to Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup that spun out of MIT and raised more than $1.8 billion in a funding round in 2021.

The government is now helping the private sector, too. The US Energy Department in September 2022 announced a Milestone Program that provides up to $50 million to build fusion energy pilot plants. The Biden administration, a fusion proponent, said in November 2022 that fusion energy is one of five key approaches to halve carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

«Uncle Sam is getting serious,» said Holland of the Fusion Industry Association. NIF’s achievement is «a pass-the-torch moment, where it goes from science and national labs to the commercial sector.»

How is fusion different from fission?

Fission, which powers today’s nuclear reactors, is the opposite of fusion. In fission, heavy elements like uranium split apart into lighter elements, releasing energy in the process.

Humans have been able to achieve fusion for decades with thermonuclear weapons. These designs slam material like uranium or plutonium together to trigger a fission explosion, and that provides the tremendous energy needed to initiate the secondary and more powerful fusion reaction.

In bombs, the process occurs in a fraction of a second, but for energy production, fusion must be controlled and sustained.

Do fusion reactors create radioactive waste?

Yes, generally, but it’s not nearly as troublesome as with fission reactors. For one thing, most of the radioactive emissions are short-lived alpha particles — helium nuclei with a pair of protons and a pair of neutrons — that are easily blocked. The fast-moving neutrons can collide with other materials and create other radioactive materials.

Fusion reactors’ neutron output generally will degrade components, requiring periodic replacement that could require downtime lasting perhaps a few months every few years. It’s vastly easier to handle than the high-level nuclear waste of fission power plants, though.

Hydrogen-boron fusion is harder to achieve than deuterium-tritium fusion, but part of its appeal is that it doesn’t produce any neutrons and attendant radioactive materials. The most prominent company pursuing this approach is TAE Technologies.

What are the safety risks of fusion power?

Fusion power plants don’t have the meltdown risks that have caused problems with fission reactors like the Fukushima and Chernobyl sites. When a fusion reaction goes awry, it just fizzles out.

But there still are significant operational issues that you’ll see at major industrial sites, including a lot of electrical power and high-pressure steam. In other words, the big problems are more like those you’d find at an industrial site than at one of today’s fission nuclear power plants.

So there are real advantages to fusion. NIF’s work helps show that there’s a future for fusion energy. But there’s still a very long way to go.

Technologies

Wild Weather Ahead: Here’s How 2024 Is Shaping Up After the Hottest Year on Record

The climate crisis is impacting communities around the world. Here’s what to know about dealing with extreme weather in 2024.

We just lived through the hottest year since recordkeeping began more than a century ago, but before too long when we look back at 2023, it might not stand out as the pinnacle of extreme heat.

That’s because it’s unlikely to be the only hottest year that we experience. Our climate is changing, growing warmer due to the emissions from burning fossil fuels, and our weather is changing with it. It’s possible that this year may turn out to be hotter still.

In March, scientists from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said February 2024 was the hottest February according to records that stretch back to 1940. The news came on the heels of their report in early January that, as expected, 2023 was indeed the hottest year on record. Temperatures closed in on the critical 1.5-degree Celsius rise above preindustrial levels, after which we will see irreversible damage to the planet. These aren’t freak outliers: The extreme heat we’re experiencing is something we’ll need to be prepared to deal with on a much more regular basis, along with storms, floods and drought.

Later in March, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its spring outlook, predicting that most of the continental US and Alaska will see above-average temperatures from April through June. The risk of flooding, it said, will ease during the three-month period because of «historically low winter snow cover» in large parts of the country.

A key trend highlighted by the US government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, published in November, was that climate change is provoking extreme weather events across the country that are both more frequent and more severe. It pointed to an increase in heatwaves and wildfires in the West over the past few decades, the increased drought risk in the Southwest over the past century and more extreme rainfall east of the Rockies. Hurricanes have also been intensifying, as those who have found themselves in the path of a storm know all too well.

You’ll need to be prepared. Extreme weather is going to have a widespread impact on industry, society and individuals. Last year in the US there were 25 extreme weather events with losses amounting to over $1 billion that resulted in the deaths of 464 people. People lost their homes, saw personal property damaged or suffered mental and physical health issues.

Three months into 2024, we’re staring down the barrel of another potentially record-setting hot year. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the US is now better prepared than ever and we know what steps you can take to better deal with these unwelcome events. When it comes to weather, forewarned is forearmed.

The US has been taking active steps. The Biden administration has provided funding to build resilient communities, and a new (as of September 2023) National Climate Resilience Framework, which should provide the US with a whole range of protections. These include conserving water resources, modernizing and strengthening the electric grid against weather and disasters and building infrastructure to protect communities and ecosystems from sea level rise, tidal flooding, hurricanes and storm surges.

At home and in your community, you can take steps, too, including preparing your home for wildfires and flooding and recognizing signs of heat-related health issues. This way, when wild weather comes calling, its impact on our homes, health and livelihoods is minimized.

Forecast 2024

Last year’s heat was no anomaly. It’s part of a long-term trend: The last 10 years have been the 10 warmest on record, according to NASA, with most of the Earth’s warming taking place over the last 40 years. Most forecasters are anticipating yet another year of extreme heat ahead.

«If we look at the forecast for the next three months in the long range, it’s suggesting that the trend that we’re seeing in baseline warming could continue, and so 2024 could rival 2023 for being the hottest year on record, which is very scary,» says Chloe Brimicombe, a heatwave researcher at the University of Graz.

Some of the extreme weather we experienced in the latter half of last year and will continue to experience in the first half of this year is a result of El Niño, a cyclical climate event that sees unusually warm ocean waters that has a knock-on effect of warmer temperatures and increased rainfall across the southern part of the US. For instance, temperatures in Death Valley, California, peaked at 128 degrees Fahrenheit in July, while forecasters predicted warmer temperatures in northern parts of the US stretching into February and a colder, wetter winter for Southern states.

While meteorologists are able to make long-term predictions about El Niño, other climate-related predictions are trickier. «All things told, we’re going to see an increased prevalence of heat events across the globe, but we can’t tell right now exactly where that will be,» says Andy Hoell, a climate scientist at NOAA.

What we do know, he adds, is that the climate crisis can compound events such as extreme heat or extreme rainfall to make them more likely or more severe.

In the past, it wasn’t always easy to draw direct links between extreme weather events and climate change. But huge improvements in attribution science (the ability to specifically identify emissions as the cause for unusually dramatic weather) in recent years have changed the game. The World Weather Attribution program, based at Imperial College London, has now completed nine studies on droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and heavy rainfall in North America. «Every study found that climate change made the event more intense and more likely,» says Ben Clarke, a researcher at WWA.

The speed at which climate scientists are able to identify human-caused climate change as the culprit for extreme weather has also dramatically improved. Last year alone, Climate Central was able to attribute record-breaking spring heat in the western US, and ongoing extreme heat stretching through the summer in Texas and Florida, to climate change as it was happening. «It’s much more impactful as far as our understanding of what climate change really is if we can make that connection in real time,» says Andrew Pershing, vice president of science at Climate Central, a climate science analysis non-profit.

Thanks to attribution science, we can confidently point to a heatwave we’ve experienced and say whether climate change played a role in making it happen. But it also helps us to recognize that extreme weather events we’re experiencing are part of a pattern – one that can’t be broken without tackling the root causes of the climate crisis. «Until the world moves away from fossil fuels and reduces emissions to net zero,» says Clarke, «extreme weather events in North America will continue to become more intense, more dangerous and more deadly.»

Even if you live in a region that hasn’t yet directly been impacted by a climate-linked weather event, you’re not off the hook.

«As the climate continues to warm, most areas will be at an increased risk of some types of climate-linked extreme weather,» says Russell Vose, chief of the Monitoring and Assessment Branch at NOAA’ National Centers for Environmental Information and one of the NCA’s authors. «Perhaps the best example is extreme heat – it can occur anywhere.»

He points to the scorching heat dome that descended on the Pacific Northwest in June and July 2021, which was unprecedented in the historical record. The unpredictable nature of such extreme heat means no regions are marked as safe.

In fact, a region that’s been lucky enough to not yet experience an extreme heat event is more likely to experience one in the future and suffer more greatly due to lack of preparedness, according to a study published by scientists from Bristol University last April.

Scientists are more concerned about the ability of people in areas that don’t usually get intensely hot to cope when their turn comes. «What worries me would be something in the Upper Midwest or the Northeast that just hasn’t had a major heat event for a few years,» says Pershing. «I think we kind of lose a little bit of that muscle memory.»

Weather’s unequal impacts

The weather might not discriminate when it comes to who gets hit, but that doesn’t mean its impacts are experienced equally by all groups across American society.

«Certain groups are simply more vulnerable to extreme events due to geographic, socioeconomic or demographic factors,» says Vose. He points to the extreme rainfall brought by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which led to a large number of homes being flooded in Harris County, Texas, with a disproportionate impact on low-income Hispanic neighborhoods.

When a heatwave hits, it will feel hotter in high-density urban environments that are more likely to be occupied by people of color or people living in poverty than in more spread-out neighborhoods or rural areas. Then some are homeless and can’t access health care. They have little ability to protect themselves, no matter how much warning they get about an incoming heatwave. This makes these groups much more vulnerable to the health risks of extreme heat.

Heat researchers are extremely concerned about people who live in housing not resistant to warm temperatures, says Brimicombe, who points out that those who rent are especially at risk. «If you’re a tenant, you have less ability to adapt your house to extreme heat than if you’re a homeowner,» she says. «And that also means young families, because babies are vulnerable to extreme heat.»

Not only are economically disadvantaged communities in the US more susceptible to feeling the worst impacts of extreme weather, but they have also done the least to contribute towards the climate crisis in the first place. A study published last August revealed that the wealthiest households in the US are historically responsible for 40% of the country’s climate emissions.

Meanwhile, these same households have more tools at their disposal to protect themselves from the impact of climate-related weather events. In 2019, The New York Times reported that wealthy California residents were banding together to hire private firefighters to protect them from the impacts of wildfires.

The Biden administration is well aware that marginalized and minority groups are hardest hit by climate change, including extreme weather. At the beginning of his term, the president set up the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, made up of leading experts from the US climate justice community.

Last September the group published its policy recommendations urging the government to ensure climate disasters do not further or exacerbate harm to vulnerable populations and communities.

«Disaster relief should never be the cause of deepening inequality in any neighborhood, region, or Tribal community,» the council wrote in its recommendations. «When disaster hits, the goal of government should be that the people hit the hardest should emerge stronger and more secure than before, not the opposite.»

It recommended a number of measures that would help protect people in case of extreme weather including the creation of a low-cost national flood insurance and the establishment of a «Just Relocation Fund» that would provide communities hit by climate impacts with a relocation process based on a dignity framework with respect for their human rights.

The White House has yet to respond to the recommendations, but if it does act on them this would hopefully prevent a repeat of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in which Black communities were allocated less money to rebuild their housing, resulting in a lawsuit against the federal government.

Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other initiatives, the Biden administration is investing heavily in adaptation, mitigation and resilience measures designed to protect all Americans from the impacts of climate-linked extreme weather. As with all funding, people may have to wait some time to feel the full impact of that funding. In the meantime, there are a number of steps you can take to keep yourself safe in the months ahead.

How to weather the weather, whatever the weather

Summer’s not so far off, meaning sizzling days are on the horizon.

Intense heat poses some scary risks to our health, including heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which can be life-threatening. It’s important to familiarize yourself with the signs so that you’ll recognize them in yourself and others, and can therefore seek medical attention if necessary.

Remember that heat is more likely to adversely affect older people, children and babies, and those with preexisting health conditions. There may be cooling centers or other well-air-conditioned places in your community where you can take refuge – if you do, consider taking elderly or vulnerable neighbors with you. «Look out for friends and families,» said Brimicombe. «Don’t be complacent.»

The British writer and fellwalker Alfred Wainwright is widely credited as coining the phrase, «there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.» Wainwright, who died in 1991, didn’t live through the kind of consistently bad weather we’re experiencing in this era of extreme heat, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn from him. In the midst of a heatwave, it’s best to wear loose-fitting clothes in light colors, rather than black, which absorbs the heat.

Make sure you stay hydrated and try to spend as little time as possible outside in the sun. Try to block sunlight from warming your house, and consider buying reflectors to place in your windows that can help keep the heat out. At nighttime, take note of when it might be cooler outside than in, and use this to your advantage by opening doors and windows to let the internal temperature of your house regulate. Fans can be effective, but at very high temperatures they’re likely to just start pushing the hot air around – in which case you should, sparingly and without putting too much pressure on the grid, resort to air conditioning, or moving to your local cooling center.

Remember that global warming is worldwide, so the same heat warnings apply even if you plan to travel to other parts of the world over the summer. The heat waves that hit the US in the summer of 2023 also impacted areas of Europe, including popular vacation spots in the Mediterranean. Countries including Greece, Spain and Italy were all affected by wildfires that resulted in the evacuation of locals and tourists alike from some areas and islands.

The surge in Europe-bound American tourists that occurred in 2023 is expected to continue this year, but if you’re planning to be among them it’s important not to travel without comprehensive insurance. Likewise, if you’re traveling in the peak months of July and August, be prepared to adjust your itinerary in case of extreme heat to ensure you’re not putting your health at risk. This may mean spending more time indoors than you’d planned for the sake of your health.

For other types of extreme weather that may hit your property such as wildfires, storms or floods, it may be useful to have an evacuation plan. You should prepare an emergency evacuation bag, also known as a go bag or a bug-out bag. Don’t forget to plan for your pets. The National Fire Protection Association has a handy guide on how to prepare your home for wildfires.

One of the easiest but most important things you can do is keep an eye on long- and short-term weather forecasts. The silver lining for people in the US, says Pershing, is that the country has great weather forecasting capabilities and the channels to communicate incoming events to people so you can prepare. «The gaps are really whether you take it seriously yourself,» he says.

So for anyone who does take it seriously, be sure to read our tips on how to prepare yourself and your home for wildfires, hurricanes, floods and storms.

Here are some additional resources:

For even more details on natural disasters and how to prepare beforehand or respond after an event takes place, check out https://www.ready.gov/.

Correction, March 15: This story originally misstated the name of the National Fire Protection Association.

Technologies

SpaceX Calls Mission 3 a Success, Despite Losing Starship: How to Rewatch

On its third attempt, SpaceX launched its Starship and cruised into space, but lost the rocket after reentry to Earth.

SpaceX launched its third Starship mission on Thursday, with the space exploration company owned by Elon Musk forging ahead after the first two attempts exploded after takeoff. SpaceX considers those first two missions successful, thanks to the data it was able to collect, and the third mission was the most successful of the bunch.

Shortly before 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday, the company posted three words to the Musk-owned X social media site: «Liftoff of Starship!» A 36-second video showed the rocket engines igniting and then Starship rising amid a cloud of exhaust smoke and up into the sky.

But the rocket did not complete the round trip, as you can see by rewatching the full test flight. «The ship has been lost. No splashdown today,» Dan Huot of SpaceX communications said on the stream. «But we were able to get through some of the early phases of reentry.»

SpaceX quality engineering manager Kate Tice noted on the stream that SpaceX wasn’t intending to recover Starship anyway, and had been planning to crash it into the ocean.

Starship is arguably the most ambitious effort for Musk, who owns the satellite-based internet company Starlink along with X, EV maker Tesla and the neurotechnology company Neuralink. The Starship missions are critical to SpaceX’s — and Musk’s — goal of getting to and eventually settling the moon and Mars.

With a new flight trajectory and hopes for new data insights, the space company’s third mission may prove to be its most important yet.

When did the Starship mission launch?

Starship’s third mission launched on March 14. It had been pending favorable weather and a license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

How to rewatch Starship mission 3

SpaceX set up livestreams for watching the third mission. One was the SpaceX account on X, and another was the SpaceX third mission landing page. You could also watch via CNET’s YouTube channel.

You can rewatch the launch on X, on the mission 3 page, or via CNET’s YouTube stream embedded here.

What SpaceX achieved in Starship mission 3

SpaceX’s third Starship mission was designed to test whether the spacecraft can complete certain tasks. After liftoff, the company planned to open Starship’s payload door and transfer its propellant from one part of the vehicle to another. For the first time, SpaceX also attempted to relight its Raptor engine while in space, a test that could be critical for future missions as it eventually tries to propel Starship through space.

Starship took a different flight path this time around, and had planned to land in the Indian Ocean instead of the Pacific Ocean until it lost the vehicle after reentry. In a statement, SpaceX said that the new flight path was designed to maximize «public safety,» but the company didn’t discuss how.

The new flight path also paved the way for SpaceX to try «in-space engine burns,» a reference to the company attempting to reignite the Raptor engine in space.

«Huge congratulations to the entire team for this incredible day: clean count (glad the shrimpers could get out in the nick of time!), liftoff, hot staging, Super Heavy boost back and coast (and likely a couple engines making mainstage during landing burn!), clean ship ‘insertion’ and coast, payload door cycling and prop transfer demo (to be confirmed!), and ship entry!» SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell posted on X following the launch, naming the successful components of the test.

The mission was slated to last for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Previous missions, if completed, would have lasted 90 minutes.

What happened in the previous missions?

April mission: Forced detonation

The first Starship mission launched in April 2023. Early on in the mission, the two stages of Starship — the reusable upper stage, called Starship, and its Super Heavy first-stage booster — were supposed to separate. That didn’t happen, and for safety reasons, the SpaceX team was forced to detonate the vehicle just 4 minutes into the mission.

November mission: Explosion due to liquid oxygen

In November 2023, Starship launched on its second mission. That time around, Starship was able to separate its two stages and it reached nominal first-stage engine burn. However, Starship exploded 8 minutes after launch when it tried to vent its liquid oxygen. Oddly, the explosion may not have needed to happen. Earlier this year, Musk said on a real mission carrying payload — meaning the materials a spaceship carries to perform its scientific mission — liquid oxygen wouldn’t be onboard.

«Starship’s second flight test achieved a number of major milestones and provided invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship,» the company wrote on its site. «Each of these flight tests continue to be just that: a test. They aren’t occurring in a lab or on a test stand, but are putting flight hardware in a flight environment to maximize learning.»

Corinne Reichert contributed to this report.

Technologies

iOS 17 Cheat Sheet: All Your Questions on the iPhone Update Answered

We explain everything from new features to upcoming updates.

Apple’s iOS 17 was released in September, shortly after the company held its Wonderlust event, where the tech giant announced the new iPhone 15 lineup, the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. We put together this cheat sheet to help you learn about and use the new features in iOS 17. It’ll also help you keep track of the subsequent iOS 17 updates.