“What a day!”, exclaimed a SpaceX commentator. Indeed, what a day for Elon Musk’s company. The fourth launch it appears that the Starship megarockets have met all of their targets, as two stages have landed. A few failures were still to be regretted, but the data collected had to be valuable for the future.
Landing in the Gulf of Mexico…
The take-off at 14:50 hours (Paris time) was carried out nominally. One of the Raptor’s 33 engines failed to fire, but not enough to jeopardize operation. As in the last test, the first stage, named Super Heavy Booster, and the second, named Ship, separated by agreement.
Then at 2:58 p.m splashdown ! In other words, right on schedule, the booster managed to simulate a vertical landing in the Gulf of Mexico, after 12 of the 13 engines restarted. Meanwhile, the Ship in close orbit continued its course around the Earth. The beginnings of atmospheric re-entry seemed to take place under the best of auspices, unlike the previous testbut the fin on which the ship’s camera was pointed began to disintegrate.
…and in the Indian Ocean
But if the steel melts and the fin threatens to buckle, the Ship eventually resists. It did manage to become horizontal though, as expected from its return to Earth pattern. Finally, 10 km before reaching the Indian Ocean, the damaged fin was still responsive and a vertical recovery maneuver took place. Restarting the engine also worked for this stage. 1 h 5 min 38 s after take-off, again according to the schedule, the Ship landed “gently”.
What were the real consequences of the disintegration of the fin? Are other parts affected? How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again? It’s too early to tell. But one thing is for sure, with another brilliant success for SpaceX, this flight will allow Elon Musk’s company to gather a lot of knowledge with the goal of a perfect end-to-end test.