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WG3K > ANS 17.03.24 07:01l 56 Lines 2865 Bytes #125 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : $ANS077.4
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Subj: Starship Lifts Off On Third Test Flight
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<CX2SA<N3HYM<WG3K
Sent: 240317/0308Z 2105@WG3K.#SMD.MD.USA.NOAM LinBPQ6.0.24
SpaceXâ€Ös Starship vehicle lifted off on its third test flight March 14,
making significant progress compared to its first two by achieving most of
its planned test milestones.
The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the companyâ€Ös Starbase
site at 9:25 a.m. Eastern. The liftoff was delayed by nearly an hour and a
half because of ships in restricted waters offshore. SpaceX reported no
technical issues during the countdown.
[*Starship lifts off on its third integrated test flight March 14. Credit:
SpaceX webcast*]
The Super Heavy booster fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for nearly three
minutes before executing “hot staging”, with the Starship upper stageâ€Ös
engines igniting while still attached to Super Heavy before separating.
The booster then performed burns to attempt what SpaceX webcast hosts
called a “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico, where it would not be
recovered. However, the landing burn did not appear to go correctly, and
the company later said that the booster broke apart 462 meters above the
ocean after lighting several Raptor engines for a landing burn.
The Starship upper stage performed its burn, placing the vehicle onto its
planned suborbital trajectory. It avoided the fate of the previous Starship
launch in November, when the vehicle broke apart late in its burn after
catching fire while venting propellant.
While in space on its suborbital trajectory, SpaceX opened a payload bay
door that will be used on later Starship vehicles for deploying Starlink
satellites. It also performed an in-space propellant transfer demonstration
as part of a NASA contract where it would move propellant from one tank
within the vehicle to another. SpaceX said it was evaluating the data from
both tests.
SpaceX had planned to perform a brief relight of a Raptor engine on
Starship about 40 minutes after liftoff, but the company said on the
webcast that this test was skipped for reasons not immediately known. The
company later said the engine test was called off because of the vehicleâ€Ös
roll rates.
Several minutes later, the vehicle started reentry. A camera mounted on a
flap on Starship provided dramatic images of the reentry, relayed through
Starlink satellites. Telemetry was lost about 49 and a half minutes after
liftoff when the vehicle was descending through an altitude of 65
kilometers. SpaceX later said on the webcast that it lost contact through
both its own Starlink satellites as well as through NASA TDRSS data relay
satellites at the same time, speculating that the vehicle may have broken
up.
While the mission did not achieve all its test objectives, the company
considered the launch a success. “What we achieved on this flight will
provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship,” it said
in a statement.
[ANS thanks SpaceNews for the above information.
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