The fourth test flight of the 5,000-ton Starship—its most successful flight yet—marked a significant milestone for the California-based aerospace company.
This manoeuvre ensured a clean separation, allowing the Super Heavy to execute a boost backburn and achieve a controlled water landing in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Super Heavy booster flight finished with its first-ever landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico 7 minutes and 24 seconds after leaving the launchpad.
“The Super Heavy booster lifted off successfully and completed a full-duration ascent burn," SpaceX said in a post-mission report.
“Starship executed another successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six-second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles."
SpaceX, the American aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, has released slow-motion footage of the fourth test flight of its Starship launch from its base site in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 am (1250 GMT) on Thursday. The journey lasted around an hour and five minutes. The video footage provides a detailed look at the immense power and precision required for a spaceship liftoff.
The fourth test flight of the 5,000-ton Starship—its most successful flight yet—marked a significant milestone for the California-based aerospace company.
The viral slow-motion video footage shows the vehicle—comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft—dramatic moments as it climbs toward orbit
SpaceX claimed that the Super Heavy booster, equipped with 33 Raptor engines, generated over 16.7 (74.3 Meganewtons) million pounds of thrust to lift the rocket from the launchpad.
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During the test flight, the Starship upper stage performed a "hot staging" manoeuvre, firing several Raptor engines while still attached to the booster. This manoeuvre ensured a clean separation, allowing the Super Heavy to execute a boost backburn and achieve a controlled water landing in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Super Heavy booster flight finished with its first-ever landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico 7 minutes and 24 seconds after leaving the launchpad.
Thursday’s mission was a far cry from the first two test flights of the 120-meter-tall rocket, both of which ended in explosions just minutes after leaving the launchpad.
“The Super Heavy booster lifted off successfully and completed a full-duration ascent burn," SpaceX said in a post-mission report. “Starship executed another successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six-second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles."
Starship is key to Musk's vision of colonizing the Red Planet and making humanity an interplanetary species, while NASA has contracted a modified version to act as the final vehicle that will take astronauts down to the surface of the Moon under the Artemis program later this decade.
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This test flight is part of SpaceX's aggressive campaign to develop a fully reusable spacecraft capable of supporting missions to the Moon and Mars.
Designed to eventually be fully reusable, Starship stands 397 feet (121 meters) tall with both stages combined -- 90 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
"Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!" tweeted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “Congratulations SpaceX team on an epic achievement!!"
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