SpaceX Releases Starship Orbital Live Updates

NASA President Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX after the first integrated flight test.

“Every great achievement throughout history demands some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward,” he said. In a tweet. “We look forward to everything SpaceX learns, the next flight test and beyond.”

– Sarah Salinas

SpaceX has indicated that the company will review data from launch to develop its next venture.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help improve the reliability of the starship.”

– Michael Sheets

Musk tweeted after the 3-plus-minute flight that the company “learned a lot” and teased “next test launch in a few months.”

– Sarah Salinas

Here’s a view of the launch from South Padre Island, five miles from the launch pad.

– Michael Sheets

To be clear, there was no one aboard this first attempt to reach space by starship. The company’s leadership has previously emphasized that SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before people can launch them on rockets.

– Michael Sheets

Before the mid-flight failure, the starship reached a major milestone: the super-heavy booster successfully separated from the rocket and began its descent back to Earth.

– Sarah Salinas

According to Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, the SpaceX rocket flew a maximum of 39 kilometers, or about 127,000 feet. That distance is less than the internationally recognized 100 kilometers as the limit of space.

– Michael Sheets

The Starship rocket failed in mid-air about 4 minutes after its historic launch. The company said in a tweet that a “rapid unplanned extraction” had occurred, indicating that the rocket had been destroyed. As a reminder, no group is on the boat.

– Sarah Salinas

SpaceX’s live stream showed the first on-board images from mid-flight 2 minutes after launch.

– Sarah Salinas

The starship is launched, the super-heavy booster fires its Raptor engines and lifts off from the pad.

– Michael Sheets

SpaceX engineers have a 40-second countdown clock to check the systems.

– Sarah Salinas

With a minute to spare, I put on earplugs.

The agency warned that the sound of the rocket booster’s 33 engines firing simultaneously could be heard in nearby districts. SpaceX noted that “individuals’ experience will depend on weather and other conditions,” but the bottom line is that higher rockets are much louder.

– Michael Sheets

One stage of propellant loading is complete, says Innsbrucker, “and the second stage closes the header tank load.

Loading is expected to be completed at the remaining stage T-3, notes Insbrücker, adding, “We’re not hearing the demand we have right now.”

– Sarah Salinas

John Innsbrucker, SpaceX’s principal integration engineer, said there was only “good news” for SpaceX teams on T-12, and that there were no significant problems with the launch vehicle.

“Everything continues to go well to start on time,” he said.

– Sarah Salinas

The countdown to launch is down to T-15, about the time SpaceX halted Monday’s attempt due to a frozen pressure valve.

– Sarah Salinas

Fully stacked on a superheavy booster, the Starship is 394 feet tall and about 30 feet in diameter—the tallest rocket ever assembled.

A super heavy booster is what starts the rocket’s journey into space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines that together generate 16.7 million pounds of thrust — more than double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which launched for the first time late last year.

The starship has six Raptor engines, three for use in Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.

– Michael Sheets

SpaceX loads the Super Heavy Booster with liquid oxygen and liquid methane, the propellants the company uses to fuel rocket engines.

In total, the rocket is loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant.

– Michael Sheets

I’m sitting on some makeshift bleachers with other journalists near the amphitheater on the southern tip of South Padre Island, overlooking the starship on the launch pad five miles away.

For reference, the press base at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is just over three miles from the launch pad in Florida.

It’s a bit foggy here near the starbase, and SpaceX said its launch team is “keeping an eye on the weather.”

– Michael Sheets

SpaceX has a 62-minute window to receive the Starship today. The window opens at 9:28 a.m. ET and runs through 10:30 a.m. ET.

– Michael Sheets