Third Time's a Charm for Starship
Third Time's a Charm for Starship
Massive Rocket Reaches Orbital Altitude
After two RUDs on Starship launches, SpaceX achieved orbital altitude with the massive rocket on the third attempt this morning.
Starship lifted off from Starbase in Boca Chica at 9:25 am ET and completed nearly all of its flight test objectives. The second stage separated from the booster at 2:50 into the flight. According to SpaceX telemetry on its video of the launch, Starship reached an apogee of 234 KM (≈145 miles) during the coast phase of the flight. The so-called "Pez" doors were tested, showing that Starship could be used to deploy Starlink satellites or spacecraft for other customers.
SpaceX was able to maintain telemetry with Starship as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, sending back spectacular video of plasma shedding off the spacecraft as it returned from space. However, the signal from Starship was lost at about T+ 00:49 minutes, and the final minutes of the flight were not recorded. The flight plan called for Starship to hover briefly in landing configuration over the Pacific Ocean before splashing down. It is not yet known if that maneuver was successful
Starship is one of the systems NASA hopes to use to be able to return humans to the Moon. And while today's flight test was a large step forward, there are obviously still a lot of large steps to go before we see a manned flight test of the spacecraft.