Coming off a string of explosive failures, on Tuesday night SpaceX once again launched its gigantic Starship rocket into space, with both its stages successfully returning to their separate landing targets on Earth.

This time, the only huge explosions were planned one: final blasts as the two spacecraft touched down. After the launch had been scrubbed twice over the two prior days, the company's engineers could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The flight demonstrated several key objectives, including completing a suborbital flight — something the previous three tests of the world's largest rocket couldn't achieve — and deploying a payload in space. Impressively, Starship even persevered despite being deliberately stripped of some of its experimental heat shield tiles to stress-test some

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