On Monday, 28 September at 7:48am CT, Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on its 14th flight and first attempt to go to orbit, according to the company.
“The mission began with the Super Heavy booster igniting all of its 33 Raptor 3 engines and ascending over the Gulf of America. During the initial climb to space, a single Raptor engine on the booster shutdown. The successful first-stage ascent was followed by a hot-staging manoeuvre and Starship’s upper stage igniting all six of its Raptor engines to continue onward to space,” SpaceX said.
“Super Heavy performed its directional flip manoeuvre and relit 31 of the planned 33 Raptor engines for the boost back burn. The boost back manoeuvre on this flight was intentionally designed to burn through the remaining liquid oxygen inside the booster’s main tank to test the limits of booster performance ahead of future return to launch site missions. The booster then reignited 11 of the planned 13 engines for the high-thrust portion of the landing burn before down-selecting to five engines for trajectory fine-tuning, and then down to three engines before splashing down in the Gulf. Upon landing burn shutdown, the Super Heavy’s flight termination system was triggered in a demonstration of the safety hardware.
“During Starship’s ascent burn, a single Raptor vacuum engine shut down early. Starship still achieved its planned, passively safe sub-orbital trajectory by burning its remaining five engines for longer than planned to compensate for the loss of thrust.
“After entering its sub-orbital trajectory, the flight control team assessed Starship’s systems and determined the three sea-level Raptors engines needed for subsequent burns were healthy and gave a ‘go’ for orbital operations. Starship then reignited a single Raptor sea-level engine to perform an orbit insertion burn and entered into orbit around Earth for the first time.
“After a brief coast, Starship then deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Contact was made soon after with every satellite over laser links, ground stations, and Starlink user terminals. The satellites will now conduct on-orbit checkouts and raise their orbits before they begin serving customers.
“Following payload deploy, Starship entered into a coast phase around Earth. Out of an abundance of caution given the engine issue experienced during ascent, the flight control team decided to limit the duration spent on orbit and proceeded with deorbiting Starship to a splashdown location in the northern Pacific Ocean. This area was one of two pre-coordinated landing zones identified before launch that was cleared of sea and air traffic.
“Starship then relit a single Raptor sea-level engine and performed its first ever deorbit burn. That manoeuvre successfully brought the vehicle out of orbit and sent Starship through atmospheric re-entry and descent to the intended splashdown point.
“The first orbital Starship flight concluded with the vehicle relighting all three Raptor sea-level engines in a landing burn and flip manoeuvre before splashing down on target in the Pacific Ocean.”
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