Starship’s Third Flight Test Successfully Lifts Off. Know Significance Of The SpaceX Mission

Starship’s third flight test successfully lifted off from Starbase in Texas, on March 14, 2024. This was the first successful launch attempt of the world’s largest and most powerful launch system, designed and built by Hawthorne-based aerospace firm SpaceX. Starbase is one of the world’s first commercial spaceports designed for orbital missions, and is the site for development and manufacturing of Starship.

The fully integrated Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket are together called Starship. The Starship spacecraft is the second stage of the system, while Super Heavy is the upper stage and booster. 

What Starship’s third flight test achieved

Starship’s third flight test completed most of its mission objectives, which included a successful burning of both the stages during ascent; opening and closing of the rocket’s payload door; a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, which is the phase after engine burnout; and a re-entry of Starship into Earth’s atmosphere. However, it was destroyed during atmospheric re-entry. 

According to a Guardian report, SpaceX’s Dan Huot said that the ship has been lost, and hence, there was no splashdown. 

One of the objectives was to make Starship splash down in the Indian Ocean. But recovery of the spacecraft was not intended. The facts that Starship has been lost, and there are no reports of a splashdown imply that the spacecraft either burned up or was divided into multiple pieces during re-entry.

The reason why SpaceX tried these techniques was to check if in-space engine burns would be possible while maximising public safety.

Following the successful launch, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Starship will make life interplanetary. 

Starship will make life multiplanetary pic.twitter.com/Ul7ksiAHBZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2024

Starship system: An integration of Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket

The Starship system has a height of 120 metres, a diameter of nine metres, and a payload capacity of 100 to 150 metric tonnes. It is capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable payloads and 250 metric tonnes expendable payloads, which means that while it can carry an extra weight of 250 tonnes, that portion can be used only once, and will subsequently be destroyed. 

Starship, the second stage of the system, is a fully reusable spacecraft, and has an integrated payload section.

Starship can also carry out point-to-point transport on Earth, and enable travel to any region in the world in one hour or less. 

Super Heavy, also fully reusable, is powered by 33 Raptor engines using sub-cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen.

Sub-cooled propellants are those which have been cooled to a temperature below their normal boiling point. 

Super Heavy has a height of 69 metres, a diameter of nine metres, and a propellant capacity of 3,400 tonnes. 

Of the 33 Raptor engines that power Super Heavy, 13 are present in the centre of the booster, and 20 around the perimeter of the tail.

Each Raptor engine has a diameter of 1.3 metres, and a height of 3.1 metres. 

The Raptor engines which power the Starship launch system are reusable methane-oxygen staged-combustion engines. Each of them has twice the thrust of the Falcon 9 Merlin engine. 

A total of six engines, which include three Raptor engines, and three Raptor Vacuum (RVac) engines, power the Starship spacecraft.

RVac engines are designed for use in the vacuum of space. 

According to SpaceX, the Starship system is the most powerful launch system ever developed, and will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights. The Starship system will also enable satellite delivery and the development of a Moon base.

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Starship’s previous flight tests

SpaceX launched Starship’s second integrated test flight on November 19, 2023. While the launch vehicle exploded within minutes after launch, it was not a complete failure, but a partial success. This is because Starship reached space by climbing to an altitude of about 150 kilometres, implying that the rocket went above the Karman line. The Karman line, from which space begins, has an altitude of 100 kilometres above sea level. 

Also, Starship successfully powered all 33 raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster, and had a successful stage separation.

SpaceX launched Starship’s first orbital test flight on April 20, 2023, from Starbase. However, Starship exploded a few minutes after launch. 

During the first integrated test flight, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.

However, as part of the second integrated test flight, a successful stage separation occurred. 

This means that SpaceX rectified a lot of mistakes that resulted in the explosion of Starship during the first test flight.

Also, as part of the second test flight, the booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after stage separation, unlike the first flight test, in which disassembly occurred before stage separation. During the second flight test, Starship’s engines fired for several minutes while the spacecraft was on its way to space. 

The Starship system represents a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

If a series of flight tests are completely successful, Starship can be classified as a fully reusable transportation system capable of ferrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, to help humans return to the Moon, and enable them to travel to Mars and beyond.

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