Tag: SpaceX

SpaceX executed the most successful flight test of its super-powerful Starship launch system to date, featuring Starship’s first-ever payload deployment and a thrilling Indian Ocean splashdown. Today’s 10th test flight followed three earlier missions that fell short of full success.

Starship’s Super Heavy booster rose from SpaceX’s Starbase launch pad in South Texas at 6:30 p.m. CT (4:30 p.m. PT) after a trouble-free countdown. The first launch attempt had to be called off on Aug. 24 due to a leaky hose in the ground support system, and a second attempt was scrubbed on Aug. 25 because of unacceptable weather.

During today’s liftoff, all 33 of the booster’s methane-fueled Raptor engines lit up to send the upper stage, known as Ship 37, to a height of more than 110 miles (180 kilometers). After stage separation, Ship’s six Raptor engines took over, and Super Heavy conducted a series of test maneuvers before sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Incredible flight for booster today,” SpaceX engineer Amanda Lee said during today’s webcast.

Halfway through its not-quite-orbital trip, Ship 37 opened a slot to deploy eight thin Starlink satellite simulators, in a manner reminiscent of cranking out candies from a Pez dispenser. Hundreds of SpaceX employees cheered as they watched space-to-ground video feeds at Starbase and at the company’s HQ in California. The dummy satellites were designed to burn up during atmospheric re-entry.

Today’s successful deployment buoyed SpaceX’s confidence that in the future, each Starship mission will be able to deploy scores of next-generation satellites for the Starlink broadband data constellation.

The end of today’s test mission came when Ship made a blazing descent through the atmosphere. At one point, a webcam picked up a view of debris flying off from the skirt around the engines at the bottom of the rocket ship. Yet another shot showed red-hot material being blasted away from Ship 37’s control flaps.

“We’re kind of being mean to this Starship,” SpaceX launch commentator Dan Huot said. “We’re really trying to see what are its limits. … We are pushing it beyond essentially what we think we’ll have to fly at.”

Despite the damage, Ship 37 was able to relight its rocket engines, flip around and splash down into the Indian Ocean. Then it exploded into flames. The whole test flight took just a little more than an hour.

“We promised maximum excitement. Starship delivered,” Huot said.

SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket got off to a great start today for its ninth flight test, but the second stage ran into a host of issues and made an uncontrolled re-entry.

The 400-foot-tall rocket’s first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, rose from its Starbase launch pad in Texas just after 6:30 p.m. CT (4:30 p.m. PT) with all 33 methane-fueled engines blazing. Cheers erupted from SpaceX’s teams in Texas and at the company’s HQ in California.

But the second stage, known as Ship, wasn’t able to open its payload doors for what would have been Starship’s first-ever payload deployment. The plan had called for Ship to send a set of eight Starlink satellite simulators into space. Instead, the experiment was scrubbed.

Minutes later, the Starship team got worse news: As the Ship headed toward a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean, it began spinning uncontrollably. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said the second stage lost attitude control, apparently due to propellant leaks.

“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives today,” he said. Ship broke up as it descended over a wide swath of open ocean that had been cleared for the splashdown.

For the second time in a row, SpaceX lost the second stage of its Starship launch system during a flight test, while recovering the first-stage Super Heavy booster.

Today’s eighth Starship flight test came a month and a half after a similarly less-than-perfect mission that sparked an investigation.

“The primary reason we do these flight tests is to learn,” SpaceX launch commentator Dan Huot said. “We have some more to learn about this vehicle.”