SpaceX test fires powerful Super Heavy booster in prelude to maiden launch
CBSN
SpaceX engineers in Texas cranked up the world's most powerful rocket Thursday, firing 31 methane-burning Raptor engines in the company's gargantuan Super Heavy booster for a seven-second test run to help clear the way for an unpiloted maiden flight as early as next month.
Capable of generating up to 16.5 million pounds of thrust — twice the power of NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket — the Raptors at the base of the Super Heavy first stage roared to life at 4:14 p.m. EST, shattering the afternoon calm at SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas, test facility.
Held firmly to its launch mount, the 230-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide Super Heavy was enveloped in a churning cloud of orange exhaust as the engines generated a torrent of incandescent fire and a deafening roar before shutting down about seven seconds after ignition.
The Army general in charge of U.S. assistance to Ukraine in 2024 left classified maps marked "SECRET" describing the war in Ukraine on a train, a Pentagon watchdog found. In:
Washington — Chief Justice John Roberts warned Tuesday that personal attacks on Supreme Court justices and lower court judges are "dangerous" and said hostility directed toward specific jurists has "got to stop." In:
More Americans are turning to artificial intelligence to manage their finances. But the tech shouldn't be the only tool you rely on to deal with money matters, according to CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger. Edited by Aimee Picchi In:
Spring break "takeovers" have started to overwhelm some Florida cities and local officials. Kelsie Hoffman contributed to this report. In:
Motorists are paying sharply higher fuel prices since the outbreak of the Iran war, despite the U.S. being the world's largest oil producer. Why? Edited by Alain Sherter In:
President Trump's director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, announced his immediate resignation Tuesday, citing the decision to begin a war against Iran when "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation." In:
Air travelers faced hundreds of flight cancellations and thousands of delays on Tuesday in the wake of powerful storms that struck the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard. Many airports also continue to struggle with disruption from reduced staffing at often-jammed security checkpoints amid a partial government shutdown that has lasted more than a month. Mark Strassmann contributed to this report. In:
President Trump has invited farmers and biofuels producers to the White House for a big event next week as the industry awaits the government's announcement on mandates for the fuel additives. In:
A bitter Democratic primary is unfolding in Maine as two candidates battle for the chance to challenge five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, one of the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents in the upcoming midterm elections.
From a surprising heatwave in California to blizzards burying parts of the Midwest and storms rolling over the East Coast, chaotic weather put more than half the nation's population in the path of extreme conditions Monday.
The race to fill the seat of retiring Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has been heating up in the days leading up to Tuesday's 2026 Democratic primary and could set the tone for other midterm primaries on issues like President Trump's deportation policies and outside spending. And another factor in the race is Gov. JB Pritzker's attempt at powerbrokering: he's given his endorsement and millions in campaign funds to his lieutenant governor, Julianna Stratton. In:
A man who was accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack in 2021 is asking a judge to dismiss the criminal charges against him, arguing he is covered by President Trump's sweeping pardons of alleged Jan. 6 rioters.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of murdering her husband and later publishing a children's book about grief, has been found guilty on all charges by a jury in Utah. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In: