SpaceX successfully launched its Starship, but the vehicle was ‘lost’ after reentry

The 3rd Starship trial formation has fared acold amended than SpaceX’s erstwhile 2 attempts. | Image: SpaceX

SpaceX’s monolithic Starship took disconnected from the company’s Starbase motorboat installation successful Boca Chica, Texas, astatine 9:25AM ET connected Thursday morning.

This trial formation was acold much palmy than its 2 predecessors, arsenic the conveyance became “the archetypal Starship to implicit its full-duration ascent burn” aft the six Raptor engines powered it to its expected orbit. It completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy booster and opened a payload doorway to show however it could beryllium utilized for missions similar delivering Starlink satellites into orbit.

The conveyance remained successful 1 portion until interaction with the Starship spacecraft was mislaid soon earlier its anticipated splashdown successful the Indian Ocean. According to SpaceX, “The formation test’s decision came during entry, with the past telemetry signals received via Starlink from Starship astatine astir 49 minutes into the mission.”

SpaceX’s broadcast of the formation trial ended astir an hr aft takeoff, with the past feeds from Starship showing what the outer cameras experienced during reentry.

Before the broadcast ended, commentators said, “We whitethorn person mislaid Starship,” aft losing connection with the spacecraft. “We haven’t heard from the vessel up until this point, truthful the squad has made the telephone that the vessel has been lost. So, nary splashdown today,” said SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot.

“Starship and Super Heavy vehicles are preparing for upcoming flights arsenic we question to summation our motorboat cadence passim the year,” writes SpaceX.

In a recap of the mission, SpaceX confirmed the destiny of the Super Heavy booster rocket aft completing a flip maneuver and boostback pain toward its splashdown determination successful the Gulf of Mexico:

Super Heavy successfully lit respective engines for its archetypal ever landing pain earlier the conveyance experienced a RUD (that’s SpaceX-speak for “rapid unscheduled disassembly”). The booster’s formation concluded astatine astir 462 meters successful altitude and conscionable nether 7 minutes into the mission.

And gave a crushed for not attempting the on-orbit motor relight arsenic planned:

Starship did not effort its planned on-orbit relight of a azygous Raptor motor owed to conveyance rotation rates during coast.

This was SpaceX’s 3rd effort to trial the Starship rocket, with the archetypal connected April 20th of past twelvemonth bursting into flames astir 4 minutes aft launch. Its 2nd effort connected November 18th fared amended — portion the Super Heavy booster also exploded aft separation, the Starship spacecraft continued its travel into orbit, wherever SpaceX believes it self-destructed aft interaction with the conveyance was lost.

Today’s Starship trial was fixed the greenish airy by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday, little than 24 hours earlier its scheduled motorboat time, having determined that SpaceX had “met each safety, environmental, argumentation and fiscal work requirements.” According to Space.com, the FAA had required SpaceX to implicit 17 corrective actions concerning things similar conveyance hardware redesigns, flammability investigation updates, and the installation of further occurrence extortion pursuing an probe into the 2nd failed Starship trial — acold less than the 63 corrective actions identified during the archetypal test.