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

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193

Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone.

The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do better.

Green group hint: March Madness.

Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.

Purple group hint: Think Wimbledon.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.

Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.

Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.

Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition

#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?

#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.

#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.

Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.

Technologies

All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free

Bad news: Mario Kart World will cost $80. Good news: These classic games will get free revamped versions for Switch 2.

Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch event on Wednesday has upset some fans for one key reason: pricing. The new console will be released on June 5 at a starting price of $450, and it will have new games, like Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders and Donkey Kong Bananza. But those games could cost as much as $80 (and that’s before factoring in possible tariffs).

Fortunately, Nintendo has also announced that some Nintendo Switch games will get free updates to improve playability on the upcoming console.

«By connecting your Nintendo Switch 2 to the internet, you can download free updates that may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games,» the company posted.

Here are all the Nintendo Switch games that can get a free update for the Switch 2.

Nintendo also announced that other Switch games will have upgraded versions of the base game, called Switch 2 Editions. These games, which include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, may offer improved graphics, unique ways to play the game with the Switch 2 hardware, and other features.

You can buy a digital or physical copy of these games if you’re purchasing them for the first time. But Switch 2 Edition games are not free if you already own the Switch version of one of these games, so you’ll have to buy an upgrade pack to play the updated version.

It’s unclear how much Switch 2 Editions of games and upgrade packs will cost, and it’s also unclear how upgrade packs will work with physical versions of Switch games.

The Nintendo Switch 2 will also be backward compatible with certain games. While we don’t know all the Switch games that will be playable on the Switch 2, we know some Switch games have startup (PDF) or in-game (PDF) compatibility issues with the upcoming console.

For more on the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, here’s what we know about the upcoming console and what to know about games like Mario Kart World and Duskbloods.