Video Replay: SpaceX Starship Test Flight a Success despite Explosion on Landing
If you’ve only watched the video replay on the news of the explosion of the SpaceX Starship SN8, you’ve missed a lot. In this article we will let you stream the full replay of the test flight of the Starship and explain why SpaceX founder Elon Musk is calling this a successful test.
For those not familiar, the Starship is the next evolution of SpaceX’s fleet of rockets and spacecraft. This one will eventually take us to Mars and beyond. Yesterday’s test flight was a high-altitude test of the Starship spacecraft (serial number 8 or SN8). The test did not include the booster rocket which will eventually be used when a Starship blasts off to leave the earth.
Watch the full Video replay of the SpaceX Starship test flight below in this article.
The Starship is 160ft tall and has the ability to carry over 100 tons of payload. During a mission launch, Starship will sit atop a SpaceX Super Heavy booster rocket capable of 16 million pounds of thrust. With the two stacked for launch, the complete Starship System stands 394 feet tall.
“SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket (collectively referred to as Starship) represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.” – SpaceX.com
The test flight yesterday was to see if the Starship spacecraft could complete a number of important functions for flight and re-entry. As you can see in the video replay below, it started with a launch of Starship and a high-altitude climb. Next the vehicle transitioned into a landing phase.
Part of the landing phase included a spectacular transition from vertical flight into horizontal flight, using its wing-like fins for maneuvering.
As it neared the ground, the Starship transitioned back to a vertical position and initiated its landing burn.
Although the engines fired to execute the landing, the final descent rate at touchdown was a little higher than planned. The result was the explosion of the SpaceX Starship which has been the focus of video streamed online and on news broadcasts.
On its YouTube page SpaceX talks about the test flight. “On Wednesday, December 9, Starship serial number 8 (SN8) lifted off from our Cameron County launch pad and successfully ascended, transitioned propellant, and performed its landing flip maneuver with precise flap control to reach its landing point.”
“Low pressure in the fuel header tank during the landing burn led to high touchdown velocity resulting in a hard (and exciting!) landing. Thank you to all the locals supporting our efforts in Cameron County and beyond. Congratulations to the entire Starship and SpaceX teams on today’s test! Serial number 9 (SN9) is up next – Mars, here we come!”
The company, and its founder Elon Musk, were very pleased with the test flight despite the explosion. All phases of the flight went extremely well, proving that the system works.
The pressure issue in the header tank has now been identified and will be corrected. As any engineer will tell you, you often learn a lot more from a system failure than from a success. That’s why the call them ‘test’ flights.
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