SpaceX Starship integrated flight test 1

On April 20, 2023, SpaceX performed the first integrated flight of its Starship rocket. The prototype vehicle was destroyed less than four minutes after lifting off from the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. The vehicle became the most powerful rocket ever flown, breaking the half-century-old record held by the Soviet Union's N1 rocket.

The launch was part of SpaceX's Starship development program, which follows an iterative and incremental approach involving frequent, and often destructive, test flights of prototype vehicles. Before the launch, SpaceX officials said they would measure the mission's success "by how much we can learn" and that various planned mission events "are not required for a successful test". The flight was generally regarded as having furthered Starship's development, and a variety of public officials congratulated SpaceX, including NASA administrator Bill Nelson and European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher.

It was planned for the Starship spacecraft to complete nearly one orbit around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere, performing a controlled landing and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. The Super Heavy booster was to have performed a similar landing in the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 mi (30 km) off the Texas coast about 8 minutes after liftoff.

The rocket lifted off at 08:33 CDT (13:33 UTC) from SpaceX's private launch site, Boca Chica, Texas. The liftoff damaged the launch pad and its surrounding infrastructure, which SpaceX said was unexpected. Some debris spread into Boca Chica State Park. Three engines did not start or aborted before liftoff, and several others failed during the flight. The vehicle passed max q and entered supersonic flight, but, due to a lack of thrust or thrust vector control, no attempt was made at stage separation. Starship tumbled and the autonomous flight termination system (AFTS) was activated but did not destroy the vehicle immediately, as was intended. The vehicle disintegrated 40 seconds later, nearly 4 minutes into the flight.

After the test, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the launch program pending results of a standard “mishap investigation” overseen by the agency and performed by SpaceX. The FAA said that a return to flight would depend on the agency's determination that future launches would not affect public safety. In August 2023, SpaceX submitted to the FAA the 63 "corrective actions" that it would need to take before another Starship launch would be allowed. Dust scattered by the launch initially caused some health concerns, but was later found by a laboratory to be ordinary beach sand, not posing a health hazard.

A second flight test of the Starship vehicle occurred on November 18, 2023. The launch did not repeat issues encountered on the first flight and the vehicle successfully performed stage separation, but both vehicles were lost thereafter.