The largest rocket in the world has once again taken to the skies, and it has done so to say goodbye. He Starship’s eleventh test flight It has been the finishing touch to a season with lights and shadows. SpaceX has exhausted the Starship V2 prototypes and has used for the last time the launch pad from which the 11 flights have taken off.
One last trick to say goodbye to the Super Heavy we know
Once again, the 33 Raptor engines of the Super Heavy booster started without problems to launch the Starship into space. For the second time, the prototype on the platform was the Super Heavy Booster 15, which had already taken off and landed successfully on flight 8.
The first big news about Flight 11 arrived after the separation of stages. The booster tested a new engine ignition sequence to stop when returning from space, the same one that the Super Heavy V3 will use. First he turned on 12 engines to brake suddenly (there had to be 13, but one took a while to start). He then turned off all but five to fine-tune his trajectory. Previously, the Super Heavy fired three engines instead of five during this braking phase.
As SpaceX propulsion engineer Jake Berkowitz explained, during the flight broadcastusing five motors “adds an additional layer of redundancy for spontaneous motor shutdowns.” But what was noticed was not the redundancy, but the additional smoothness in the maneuver.
SpaceX did not intend to recover Booster 15 with the tower’s arms, but rather to virtually rehearse the maneuver over the Gulf of Mexico. The rehearsal went smoothly, but the SpaceX broadcast from the point of view of the rocket did not do justice to the precision of the maneuver. Fortunately, NASASpaceflight cameras captured the moment from shore.
With the NASASpaceflight video We witness the last seconds in flight of the Super Heavy V2. And to the last trick that SpaceX has pulled out of its hat. The imposing 70-meter-high steel cylinder, equivalent to a 24-story building, seems to stop time over the ocean. The braking is so smooth and vertical that it gives the sensation of standing still, magically floating dozens of meters above the water. Then it plummets and self-detonates.
The deployment of satellites with Starship is already looking much better
As for the ship, it completed one of its most roundabout flights in a long time. After finishing his eight minute climbturned off its six engines and began a suborbital trajectory toward the Indian Ocean. He later opened a slot in his cargo bay and slowly deployed but this time gentlyeight Starlink satellite simulators.
Starship 38 has shown that SpaceX is very close to being able to deploy cargo with its mega rocket. Starting in spring (in the time of Elon Musk), Starship will begin launching new generation Starlink satellites, much larger than the current ones and with the capacity to offer gigabit bandwidth to customers.
Another critical maneuver that they already have under control is deorbiting. For the third time in its history, Starship restarted a Raptor engine in the vacuum of space, which in the future will allow it to return from space to land or make orbital corrections on missions to the Moon and Mars.
The final phase of the mission was, perhaps, the most risky. SpaceX had purposely removed even more tile patches from the heat shield with the goal of increasing stress on the vehicle and collecting data on its tolerance limits for the extreme heat of reentry. Despite the mistreatment, the ship survived the inferno surrounded by plasma while the cameras on board once again gave us spectacular views.
Just before the end, the ship executed another novel maneuver: a “dynamic turn” to simulate the trajectory that future Starships will take to align with the tower at Starbase. Like the booster, the ship will attempt to be trapped by the mechanical arms of one of the two launch towers.
Finally, 66 minutes into the flight, Ship 38 made its iconic turn prior to splashdown, started its engines for a final braking and fell into the water in one piece. Of course, several tiles of the heat shield fell off along the way.
The end of an era and a presumed wait for the next Starship
In addition to being successful, Flight 11 has been a turning point for several reasons. First, it closes the chapter on Block 2 vehicles, a generation that has had a turbulent history with the failures of Flights 7, 8 and 9 (as well as a large explosion on the ground), but which redeemed itself with the successes of Flights 10 and 11.
On the other hand, it is the last mission from Platform 1 in its current configuration. This ramp, which suffered catastrophic damage on the first flight and was rebuilt with a massive flame deflector that shoots water jets, will be completely renovated to accommodate the third generation rockets. However, the next launches will be made from Platform 2, which is about to go live.
With V2 retired, attention now turns to V3, the version that will be the first to reach Earth orbit and begin deploying next-generation Starlink satellites. Despite the advanced status of both the V3 prototypes and the second tower, Starship is not expected to fly again for a few months. This new iteration and its engines still have tests to complete before taking flight.
Starship 3 will be more powerful, taller (about 124 meters, adding the two stages) and will be better finished. The Super Heavy will have the integrated hot separation ring and a new design in the aerodynamic grilles, which become three. It will debut Raptor 3 engines and fuel lines so large they resemble a Falcon 9.
The Starship will include adapters that will allow it to transfer fuel in orbit (an essential maneuver for lunar missions). Although no one is confident that NASA’s Artemis 3 lunar landing mission can occur in 2027, the success of these test flights is the only way to quell skepticism and make the return of the United States and its partners to the Moon a reality. Partners among whom, one day, there will be European astronauts.
Image | SpaceX
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