SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful rocket on its fourth flight on Thursday, successfully launching the Starship’s upper stage into space and then bringing it back down through the heat of reentry for an apparently controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean, despite serious damage to at least one steering fin.
The giant Super Heavy first stage booster also made a controlled descent to a “soft” landing in the Gulf of Mexico after propelling the spacecraft out of the lower atmosphere. It was the first time that both phases were able to achieve the primary objectives of the test flight.
“Despite the loss of many (heat shield) tiles and a damaged flap, Starship achieved a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on X. “Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic achievement!”
The 370-foot rocket blasted off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, “Starbase” flight facility at 8:50 a.m. EDT, thundering away from the Gulf Coast on the power of 33 methane-burning Raptor engines in the Super Heavy first stage.
As Musk watched from the company’s launch control center, with one of his children on his lap, the Super Heavy Starship climbed from its platform atop a brilliant jet of flaming exhaust, arcing eastward as it accelerated skyward.
Capable of generating 16 million pounds of thrust during its initial phase of flight, the rocket is by far the most powerful launch vehicle ever built with more than twice the launch power of the space shuttle, NASA’s legendary Apollo program Saturn 5 and the Space Launch System rocket. designed for the agency’s Artemis moon rocket.
Despite one Raptor stopping early, the Super Heavy propelled the Starship’s upper stage out of the dense lower atmosphere and then separated, turned around and restarted multiple engines to change course and head back to the Gulf Coast. In the meantime, the spaceship, powered by six of its own Raptors, continued its climb into space under its own power.
In a first for the test program, the Super Heavy performed a controlled descent, activating three engines to slow for a splash, amid waves of raucous cheers and applause at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California, factory, as live television footage followed the tail of the booster showed. splashing into the water.
The 50-meter-tall spacecraft, meanwhile, reached its planned sub-orbital trajectory as planned and then circumnavigated the globe before falling back into the atmosphere. Live television footage showed the rocket bathed in the red glow of atmospheric friction as it belly-flopped back into the lower atmosphere.
During the rocket’s third test flight in March, the spacecraft did not survive the encounter with atmospheric friction and broke up at high altitude. This time, the vehicle appeared rock solid as it plummeted back to Earth, bathed in superheated plasma that visibly coated the rocket’s belly and control fins.
As the descent continued, a camera showed the heat eating away at a steering fin as chunks of flaming debris tore away.
“This is a nail biter!” exclaimed SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Remarkably, data from the spacecraft continued to flow in and the vehicle’s engines were reignited for the planned landing. The direction the ship was in when it hit the water could not be seen from the footage from an obviously damaged camera, but reaching that point was a great success.
“It was incredible,” said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. “I can’t wait for the next one.”
Both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship are designed to be completely reusable. Once operational, SpaceX plans to fly the first stage back to the launch site, where it will be occupied by giant mechanical arms on its launch gantry. The spaceship is designed to land at any available spot, be it on Earth, the moon or even Mars.
But for the first test flights of the Super Heavy Starship, recovery was not an option. The goal was to “simply” return both stages intact and under control to the lower atmosphere.
“The fourth flight test shifts our focus from reaching orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX said on its website. “The primary objectives are to conduct a landing and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieve controlled entry of the Starship.”
In three previous flights, two in 2023 and the most recent in March, the Super Heavy and Starship stages suffered catastrophic failures before all test objectives could be met. But with each flight, SpaceX implemented hardware and software upgrades that resulted in dramatically improved performance.
During the third test flight, the Starship’s upper stage reached space, orbited the planet and began a planned descent over the Indian Ocean before breaking up in the upper atmosphere. The Super Heavy booster reached the lower atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico before losing control.
But SpaceX called the flight an overall success and made more changes during Thursday’s test to improve performance.
It is critical that the Super Heavy Starship flies regularly NASA’s Artemis moon program. NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract in 2021 to develop a variant of the Starship upper stage to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back. Artemis crews will travel to and from the moon using Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsules.
To reach the moon, multiple Super Heavy tanker flights will need to be launched to robotically refuel the upper stage of a spacecraft already in low Earth orbit. The Starship lander will then fly itself to lunar orbit to wait for the Artemis moon walkers.
NASA’s contract calls for one unmanned test flight on the moon landing before astronauts make an actual landing attempt. Artemis managers are aiming for the first moon landing with astronauts on board at the end of 2026.
But that will depend on whether SpaceX will launch enough Super Heavy-Starship flights to demonstrate reliability. Although SpaceX’s philosophy is to fly often, learn from mistakes and fly again, NASA will need a long string of successful flights before the agency deems it safe to bring astronauts on board.
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