WATCH: The moment SpaceX rocket explodes in the ocean

SpaceX's next-generation Starship rocket entered orbit for the first time on Monday despite one of its engines shutting down. It overcame the obstacle during its flight to launch the first batch of new Starlink satellites, as Elon Musk's company plans to put the vehicle into regular service by the end of this year. 

A few hours later, the rocket landed in the water in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, during which the rocket exploded. However, its mission, which was initially planned to last 10 hours, was limited to only 3 due to an engine problem, and was successfully completed.

As Reuters reports, the 40-story-tall unmanned vehicle, consisting of a Super Heavy booster rocket, was launched from SpaceX's Starbase platform along the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville.

About 2 million X users tuned in to watch the rocket's journey live on SpaceX's official Twitter account. The space company posted some impressive footage from space. The blastoff occurs at 3:44:17 of the broadcast.

However, there were also setbacks. After arriving in space, one of Starship's three main engines failed earlier than planned, a development that prompted SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot to announce during the company's live broadcast of the mission that the ship would not be able to reach orbit. 

“The team decided not to pursue orbit entry,” he said. However, he revised that after a briefing from engineers, who confirmed that the ship could still attempt to fire an engine burn that would launch it into orbit, which Starship successfully did a few minutes later. Once in orbit, Starship began launching 26 next-generation Starlink satellites one by one to a planned altitude of about 166 miles (269 km).

Starship, which was built to launch SpaceX's Starlink satellites more frequently and carry future NASA missions to the Moon, was expected to complete six orbits around Earth before falling back to Earth.

Reaching orbit, a key milestone for any new rocket designed to carry cargo into space, has been a delayed achievement for Starship, which Musk had once predicted would happen in 2022, with satellite launches to follow in 2023. 

However, as of 2023, all 13 previous Starship test flights have been limited to suborbital space, despite a nearly decade-long development campaign that has cost SpaceX more than $15 billion to date. ©LAPSI.al