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SpaceX’s Starship flew to space and returned, but suffered visible damage when it fell back to Earth.
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The rocket’s fin began to tear off mid-fall, and the camera lens cracked.
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However, the Starship flash was a big step towards reusability, and Elon Musk claimed victory.
SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket on the road to Elon Musk’s Mars settlement plans took a huge hit on Thursday — but not without some battle scars.
For the first time ever, the rocket ship flew into space and returned to Earth to splash into the Indian Ocean, its engines firing and communications with mission control intact.
However, the SpaceX live stream was disintegrating the spacecraft as it hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere.
The audience had a limited view of the ship itself, but the on-board camera was conveniently positioned directly in front of a fin that began to rip out about halfway through the plumet back to Earth.
Soon the spacecraft was throwing up so much debris that it clouded the camera. Eventually, according to a SpaceX commentator on the live stream, the lens cracked under the extreme conditions.
Still, Starship partially accomplished one of its biggest goals for this flight: practice landing.
SpaceX operators confirmed that, as Starship approached the water, it fired its engines in an attempt to propel itself upright and lower itself to a soft landing.
You can watch the entire ordeal on the SpaceX live stream, starting at 1 hour and 25 minutes:
Musk claimed victory, posting on X: “Despite losing many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean! Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic feat!!
Given the damage to the spacecraft, and the poor visibility from the camera recording, it was not immediately clear how soft the landing really was.
The full extent of the damage to Starship was not immediately clear either, and may never be, since SpaceX does not plan to recover the ship from the ocean.
It’s really tough falling back to Earth
Stripping was a sight, but no surprise. This was a test flight, after all, and SpaceX was just getting excited.
Space flight is hard, but the return trip to Earth is pretty damn good.
A spacecraft screams “back in” toward Earth at often the speed of sound — 17,000 mph for Starship, according to SpaceX — pushing through an increasingly thick atmosphere and building up so much friction that ultra-heated plasma forms around her belly, burning the spaceship. with temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
That plasma also showed up on the live stream.
That’s why any spacecraft designed to come back to Earth must have a decent heat shield. As for Starship, that’s its belly of 18,000 hexagon-shaped ceramic tiles, which Musk revealed is still a work in progress.
“A reliable, lightweight, reusable heat shield is the biggest remaining technical challenge for Starship,” Musk said write on X in May.
After Thursday’s flight, he reiterated that the heat shield was “the most difficult problem left.”
Although this was the launch system’s fourth test flight, it is only the second time Starship has reached space.
The first time, in March, SpaceX declared the vehicle “lost” after it lost communication on the way back down. That probably means it separated or blew off the stress of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Starship-Super Heavy launch system – consisting of the lower stage Super Heavy booster and the upper stage Starship vehicle – is the world’s first largest, most powerful and reusable rocket orbiter.
The starship landing was a big step towards reusability. The Super Heavy booster also practiced and successfully made its first soft water landing, after separating from Starship on Thursday.
The booster fired its engines and turned itself upright to descend into the Gulf of Mexico.
Eventually, SpaceX plans to land both stages of the rocket on solid ground for a quick overhaul and fly again another day.
If it lives up to the hype, Starship-Super Heavy could reduce the cost of spaceflight tenfold, provide high-speed point-to-point transportation on Earth, and, yes, even bring the first colonists to Mars.
Read the original article on Business Insider
