The new and upgraded SpaceX Super Heavy launches Starship on its twelfth test flight on Friday from the new Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo
May 22 (UPI) -- SpaceX successfully launched an updated version of its Starship on Friday evening, meeting all goals the company said it was aiming for.
The launch was the first of the company's V3 version of both the booster rocket and "Ship" upper stage, which is a key part of NASA's Artemis series of missions to the moon and, potentially, to Mars.
SpaceX commentators said during the company's official broadcast that the updated Starship, which delivered 22 simulator Starlink satellites into orbit and converted flight adjustments it will need when it lands instead splashing down in water, "delivered."
The company had scrubbed the first attempted launch of the megarocket, the largest ever built, on Thursday because of an engineering issue that could not be fixed in time to make the scheduled launch window.
