SpaceX's Starship scored a double win on its fourth test mission today as both the Super Heavy first stage and the Starship second stage had successful flights, reaching space and ending in slow splashdowns in the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean.
Flight 4 lifted off on June 6, 2024 at 7:50 am CDT from SpaceX's Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The largest and most powerful rocket ever built has made three previous attempts at successful orbital missions, though these ended in explosions, engine failures, and loss of attitude control on the latest previous attempt to land Starship.
According to SpaceX, these failures were anticipated and part of the company's policy of speeding development by testing its rockets to destruction. Unfortunately, the uncontrolled end of the previous three flights resulted in FAA investigations and official permission for Flight 4 being being withheld until the day before launch.
During Flight 4, as the 397-ft (121-m) rocket lifted off, 32 of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster fired successfully and completed the full ascent burn before all but three engines powered down as the Starship second stage fired its six Raptor engines during the hot fire separation maneuver. The first stage then executed a return to Earth and a landing burn for a soft splashdown at seven minutes, 24 seconds into the flight.
Meanwhile, Starship continued its engine burn as it ascended into a suborbital trajectory. During most of the flight, a constellation of onboard high-resolution cameras and SpaceX's Starlink satellite networks provided real-time video coverage as well as a steady stream of telemetry for the engineering teams.
This allowed for some very spectacular footage up to and through Starship's reentry phase. Normally, this reentry would have resulted in a communications blackout due to the build up of hot ionized plasma around the spacecraft. This time, Starship was able to continually send back video and telemetry that gave a remarkably clear picture until debris built up on the camera lens, which eventually cracked under the intense heat.
Flight 4 ended one hour and six minutes after launch when Starship fired its three center Raptor engines for a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Starship carried no payload on the test flight and the craft had some of its heat shield removed to learn how hot the hull got during reentry. In an X (formerly Twitter) post, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that Starship lost some tiles and suffered from a damaged flap, but was able to complete its tasks.
Because the flight ended under full control, no FAA delay of Flight 5 is anticipated, which may take place in July and may see the Super Heavy booster being captured on returning to the launch site by SpaceX's Mechazilla tower.
Source: SpaceX