SpaceX has finally nailed a test flight of the rocket ship that tech billionaire Elon Musk wants to use to send people to Mars.

Four previous test flights ended in explosions but the upgraded Starship went vertical just in time for landing on Wednesday, having soared more than its planned maximum altitude of six miles over the Gulf Of Mexico.

There was a fire at the base of the 50m rocket after it landed, but this was quickly extinguished.

Launch commentator John Insprucker said: “Starbase Flight Control has confirmed, as you can see on the live video, we are down. The Starship has landed.”

Mr Musk tweeted: “Starship landing nominal!”

Less than a month ago, NASA chose SpaceX’s Starship to deliver astronauts to the moon in the next few years.

But the £2.15bn contract was paused last week after the other companies in the running – Dynetics, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin – complained.

Mr Musk said last month that the NASA money will help to develop Starship, adding that it had been a “pretty expensive” project so far and had been funded mostly internally.

“As you can tell, if you’ve been watching the videos, we’ve blown up a few of them. So excitement guaranteed, one way or another.”

A first orbital Starship flight is planned for year’s end and Mr Musk has said he wants to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon with the Starship in 2023.

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