SpaceX achieved a huge milestone this week with the third integrated flight test of the Starship rocket. For the very first time, the massive 120-metre-tall vehicle successfully reached orbital velocity and coasted halfway around the Earth.

Watching the live feed from the external cameras as the ship coasted through the blackness of space, and later observing the fiery plasma building up around the heat shield during atmospheric reentry, was absolutely mesmerising.

While neither the booster nor the ship survived their respective descents to the ocean, getting a vehicle of that colossal size and mass into space is a profound aerospace achievement. The architecture for deep space exploration is maturing right before our eyes.

Cover Image Credit: By Steve Jurvetson  - Flickr , CC BY 2.0, Link