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SpaceX’s Starship — the largest and most powerful rocket ever built — has blasted off from its Texas launchpad. Despite exploding minutes after liftoff, the first-of-its-kind flight has been hailed as a success by the company. 

Starship launched from a SpaceX launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, today (April 20) atop the company’s Super Heavy booster rocket, whose 33 Raptor 2 engines carried the vehicle into the stratosphere with a record-breaking 16.5 million pounds (7.5 million kilograms) of thrust.

Shortly after liftoff, an issue with the separation mechanism between the rocket’s two stages caused it to enter a spin, and it exploded just minutes later. 

Related: Geomagnetic storm sends 40 SpaceX satellites plummeting to Earth

“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” SpaceX wrote on Twitter (opens in new tab) .

The launch is the first test of the rocket system that SpaceX has said it will use to transport crews, spacecraft, satellites and cargo to locations in the solar system — both for its own purposes and on behalf of NASA. The U.S. space agency is slated to use Starship’s Human Landing System to transport humans to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972 on the Artemis 3 and 4 missions. 

Now that the spaceship has shown it can fly, SpaceX intends to send another Starship into low Earth orbit with a crew on board by the end of the year, but how much the separation mechanism issue will delay or alter these plans is unknown. 

At 394 feet (120 meters) tall, Starship is roughly the length of three passenger jets and is 30 feet (10 m) taller than the Saturn V rocket that first sent the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon in 1969. Starship is also more than twice as powerful as Saturn V, which propelled itself with 7.6 million pounds (3.4 million kg) of thrust.RELATED STORIES — Ethereal whirlpool of light grows into a giant, perfect spiral above Alaska. What was it?

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Starship is designed primarily with cheap and efficient manufacturing in mind, using inexpensive stainless steel for its construction and methane (which SpaceX says can be collected on Mars) to power the rocket. It is designed to be reusable, and can carry a payload of up to 275 tons (250 metric tons) in its non-reusable state — around 10 times that of SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 rockets.

This was the rocket’s second attempt at taking off. During the first attempt, on Monday (April 17), the rocket was fueled and readied, but the launch was stopped with nine minutes left on the clock, after a frozen valve caused pressurization problems in the Super Heavy booster.

On Sunday (April 16), Musk lowered expectations for the upcoming launch, warning in a Twitter discussion that many problems could arise and that he would consider it a success if the launch just didn’t “blow up the launchpad.”

“Success is not what should be expected,” he said ahead of Monday’s scrubbed launch. “It may take us a few kicks of the can here before we reach orbit.”

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Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies’ McMahon

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Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies' McMahon

NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.

The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.

An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.

While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.

The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.

Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.

Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.

Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.

With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.

MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.

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Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

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Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.

The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.

Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.

On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.

The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.

Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.

Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

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Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

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Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.

Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.

The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”

With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.

“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”

Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.

The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.

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