Scott Manley:
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Super Heavy:
- Super Heavy successfully lit several engines for its first ever landing burn before the vehicle experienced a RUD (that’s SpaceX-speak for “rapid unscheduled disassembly”). The booster’s flight concluded at approximately 462 meters in altitude and just under seven minutes into the mission.
And Starship:
While coasting, Starship accomplished several of the flight test’s additional objectives, including the opening and closing of its payload door (aka the pez dispenser,) and initiating a propellant transfer demonstration. Starship did not attempt its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast. Results from these demonstrations will come after postflight data review is complete.
Starship went on to experience its first ever entry from space, providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control during hypersonic reentry. Live views of entry were made possible by Starlink terminals operating on Starship.
The flight test’s conclusion came during entry, with the last telemetry signals received via Starlink from Starship at approximately 49 minutes into the mission.
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It is worth remembering that – back in those distant days when NASA was awesome – the first manned lunar landing was flight Apollo 11 (as in the 11th step). I recall reading somewhere that the first successful launch of the Saturn V rocket had the rocket enter orbit flying backwards – a similar attitude to Starship’s first re-entry to the atmosphere.
Space flight is very difficult, and a lot of learning can come only from trying & failing and recognizing what needs to be changed for the next attempt. For SpaceX to have come so far with only the third Starship flight is really impressive!
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