The Starship blasted off from SpaceX's launch site, Starbase, Texas, where residents voted this month to organize as an official city.

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved the "big, beautiful bill." The bill now goes to the Senate, where it needs a majority vote to pass.

The rocket system is the centrepiece of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s vision to ferry humans to Mars and expand his firm’s global dominance.