Replay! SpaceX Starship launches on 3rd integrated test flight

hello and good morning you're looking at

a live view of Starship the world's most

powerful launch vehicle and by far the

biggest flying object ever made we're

currently at t plus 31 minutes and 24

seconds awaiting our third flight test

of Starship from Starbase Texas or what

we here at SpaceX like to call the

gateway to Mars thanks for tuning in

we're excited to be joining you from

SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne

California now it's just been a

hundred

you can tell the crowd is already

excited behind us now it's only been 117

days since our last Starship test and

for those of you following along you'll

know there's nothing more exciting as

you can hear than to watch a de

developmental flight test that's

absolutely right flight test St

guarantee the maximum level of

excitement as you can hear behind us and

if it all goes well Starship will lift

off just about 30 minutes from now we're

hoping to surpass what we achieved in

flight test number two back in November

of last year but regardless of today's

outcome the goal is to collect as much

data as possible and that'll help us get

one step closer to a fully operational

Starship now Starship which you see on

your screen is the latest and largest

vehicle developed to date by SpaceX and

in the world ever compared to Saturn 5

the rocket that first took astronauts to

the Moon Starship has more than twice

the thrust and with some upgrades that

are planned for the future it'll have

three times the thrust Starship will

allow us to fly the heaviest payloads

ever flown land humans on the moon again

after more than a half century and

ultimately fly humans further into space

than ever before even to Mars but the

most important thing about Starship is

that it's designed to be a fully rapidly

reusable reliable rocket or what we like

to call the four RS and we'll talk more

about those later in the webcast but

before we dive into the details of

today's test let's recap the

achievements of our last integrated

flight test flight

two all 33 Raptor engines on the super

heavy booster started up successfully

and for the first time completed a full

duration burn during Ascent as you can

see here we saw amazing views of each

Raptor engine burning during that Ascent

which is something awesome because we

don't get to see that with Falcon and

its Merlin engines now next Starship

executed a successful hot stage

separation powering down all but three

of super heavy Raptor engines and

successfully igniting the six second

stage Raptor engines before the vehicle

separated this is the first time this

technique has been done successfully

with a vehicle of this size and scale

following separation the super heavy

booster successfully performed its flip

maneuver and initiated the Boost back

burn however about 30 seconds into that

burn it experienced a rapid unscheduled

disassembly or rud that SpaceX speak for

an exciting end to the booster's journey

the likely cause was determined to be

filter blockage where liquid oxygen is

supplied to the engines so we've

upgraded Hardware inside the oxygen tank

to improve filtration capabilities in

our boosters including the one that's

out on the pad today vehicle breakup

occurred more than three and a half

minutes into the FL into the flight

about 90 kilometers over the Gulf of

Mexico so well away from people now on

Starship the six second stage Raptor

engines all started successfully at

separation and everything was going

normally in the ship's climbed space

until about 7 minutes into the flight

when we began a planned vent of excess

liquid oxygen propellant to simulate the

mass of a payload and get future Focus

data the ship was loaded with extra

propellant that we needed to get rid of

or vent before re-entry once we started

venting though a leak developed that

caused fires which eventually cut the

connection between the flight computers

on the ship and that caused the six

Raptor engines to shut down before we

had finished the full burn that was

detected by as a mission violation by

the autonomous flight safety system

which triggered a the flight termination

system and led to vehicle breakup

starship's second flight test nearly

completed its full duration burn it

ended at an altitude of about 150

kilometers and a velocity of 24,000

kilometers per hour officially making it

the first Starship to reach outer space

like the booster we've made upgrades to

starship's Upper stage based on flight 2

learning such as improved leak reduction

fire protection and changing the

operations to increase reliability now

back at the launch site the new water

cooled flame deflector and other pad

upgrades performed as expected so the

pad required minimal post-launch rework

and that's a big reason why why we are

ready to fly again today the ground

support systems are designed for Rapid

turnaround of the Launchpad between

flights and the improvements we've made

ahead of flight three are getting us

closer to that goal and that brings us

to today's test the test profile and the

burn timeline are very similar to test

number two with one major difference the

ship will attempt to splash down in the

Indian Ocean rather than the Pacific

this puts us on a steeper trajectory

than past flights and lets us taste cap

test capabilities that we'll need for

the future like lighting a raptor in

space while maximizing Public Safety so

let's take a closer look at the flight

test profile now about 26 minutes from

now super heavy will ignite its 33

Raptor engines and lift off from

Starbase about 3 minutes into the flight

super Heavy's booster will separate from

the ship in spacex's second ever attempt

at a hot stage separation that means

it'll light its engines while still

attached to a partially lit booster the

ship's engines will then remain lit for

about 6 minutes during the ascent before

entering a coast phase next the booster

will perform a flip maneuver and execute

a boost back burn which if you recall is

where flight two super heavy experience

a rapid unscheduled disassembly we're

hoping Hardware upgrades made for this

flight will get the booster closer to

executing a landing burn in the Gulf of

Mexico in the meantime Starship will

Coast for about 30 minutes at altitudes

between 150 and 235 km and the ship will

attempt to fire a single Raptor engine

for our first ever relight of a Raptor

engine in space and from there the ship

will head toward its destination a

splash down location in the Indian Ocean

again if we get past a successful stage

separation and a full Ascent burn with

the upper stage it will be at an at

altitude and trajectory below orbital

meaning Starship won't have to fire its

Raptor engines for a deorbit burn and it

will naturally come back into the

atmosphere no matter what now meanwhile

the super heavy is going to attempt a

landing burn before splashing down into

the Gulf and while we are going to

practice a landing we aren't planning to

recover any of the hardware from super

heavy or the ship on this flight now

with the exception of Falcon this is no

different from what happens with most

Rockets flying today that are expended

or fall into the ocean after they

complete their mission eventually though

we will land and recover Starship

boosters and ships just as we do with

Falcon 9 and heavy boosters where we've

recovered 283 to date starship's rapid

reusability is key as we begin missions

to the moon and Beyond even though

recovery is not planned the Telemetry

and data we receive all the way to the

end is what we're looking for

particularly with regard to the ship's

temperatures during re-entry and how the

heat shield will perform the data that

we gather today of course will help us

continue to build a rapidly reusable

Starship for the future now much like

our first two flight tests today also

still just a test our goal is to gather

data to continue iterating and

ultimately uh improve Starship that's

exactly right the primary goal for

flight one was to clear the pad and we

did that and got a lot of great data

that helped us improve the vehicle and

the pad infrastructure that you see

today the primary goal of Flight 2 was

to get all the way to Stage separation

which we did and even got a little extra

for flight three we've added some

ambitious tests highlighted by an

attempt to transfer several tons of

propellent between the tanks inside

Starship itself as well as the first

ever relight of a Raptor engine in space

and the opening and closing of

starship's payload door when Starship

takes astronauts to the lunar surface as

part of NASA's emis program it will be

refilled in Space by a Starship tanker

spacecraft before boosting itself into a

lunar orbit

like you see here transferring a large

amount of cryogenic liquid in space has

never been done by anyone ever so uh

we'll be looking to get data on some of

the fundamental physics in play here

like managing pressures temperatures uh

propellant settling um all as we prepare

for eventual ship-to ship transfers the

ability to refill Starships once in

orbit will be critical for landing on

the moon and is a key technology for

enabling deep space exploration and

ultimately flights to Mars now we're

also attempting the first ever relight

of a Raptor engine in space and we'll

need that capability for future in space

Maneuvers and deorbit burns it's

important to note that what we'll

attempt today is not a burn required for

Starship to reenter on today's test we

are intentionally flying this new

steeper trajectory so we can test things

like engine relights without

substantially changing where we expect

to splash down and if Starship manages

to make it all the way to re-entry we

will collect that valuable data on the

vehicle as it flies through the Earth's

atmosphere at Hypersonic speeds or more

than five times the speed of sound we

expect it to look something like this

animation on your screen with the heat

shield tiles facing down we'll use the

Earth's atmosphere to break the vehicle

and help then get us into a controllable

regime as we go towards Splashdown and

we did validate starship's ability to

fly in land at subsonic speeds during

our suborbital flights several years ago

and Gathering data on the aspects like

Heating and vehicle control while we're

traveling way faster will become

critical to eventually bringing

Starships back from space for Rapid

reuse we'll also attempt to open and

close starship's payload door for the

very first time a capability that we'll

need when Starship starts flying our

next Generation starlink satellites and

there you can see an animation of what

that will look like as the satellites

are deployed one by one through a slot

near the top of the space C so at this

point in time we are approaching T-minus

21 minutes until liftoff let's check in

with Dan for a countdown

update hey thanks Kate hey everybody I'm

Dan hu good morning welcome to Starbase

I'm coming to you from the Raptor's Nest

where I'm here with some of our flight

controllers also our pad red team uh

we're just behind the mega Bay those are

super heavy boosters right behind me

getting ready for the next four flights

after this one uh so we're looking to

lach a lot this year uh countdown has

been pretty clean so far we're not

tracking any issues that are gating us

on the hardware side and the vehicle

side from that on time liftoff at 8:25

a.m. Central Time that's our t0 right

now we primarily shifted later as we

were just working to clear the range uh

the other big watch item today is going

to be the winds the winds uh have

started to pick up we're still looking

to be below our limits but there could

be a hold at tus 40 seconds just to make

sure that the winds are acceptable

before we go we are actively loading

propellant on board the vehicle you can

see by the frost line starting to build

up looks like we're about 80% on the

ship main tanks right now and a little

over 60% on the booster now Starship

uses liquid methane as its fuel liquid

oxygen as its oxidizer both of those get

cooled down to a cryogenic temperat so

several hundred degrees below zero and

if you followed along with our previous

two flight tests the propo timeline

today looks a little bit different those

first flight tests took us about 90

minutes to load all of the prop on board

but since the second flight we made some

pretty significant upgrades to make that

time shorter we added some additional

Fuel and locks pumps just to increase

our capacity we expanded the number of

heat exchangers and installed a

dedicated fill drain line for each stage

but they were sharing one before now

they each have their own that's just

that main Pathway to get the propell to

the vehicle we're aiming for about 51

minutes for today's operation to fully

load prop we did that successfully on

our first on our wet dress rehearsal

that we did recently eventually though

we're trying to get that time down to

about 40 minutes just for some contents

context that's about five minutes longer

than we take on Falcon 9 but we're doing

it with 10 times the amount of

propellant now the propellant load on

ship started at about T minus 53 minutes

booster right around t- 42 minutes uh we

are about to pause loading on the main

tanks of ship switch over to the header

tank s and then switch back to close out

the main tanks we're expecting all of

the prop to be on ship at about tus 3

minutes 30 seconds and then booster prop

load ends at T minus 2 minutes and 50

seconds now our final countdown and

startup sequence is going to be the same

as flight two we already tested this on

this booster when we did it static fire

looking back for flight one we lit those

Raptor engines on the booster and lifted

off about 6 seconds later flight two we

reduced that time by almost 2 seconds

that just helps reduce the stress on the

ground systems improve the efficiency of

the rocket but right now we're just

about to past 18 minutes away from

launch winds again they're still looking

a little bit marginal so we'll keep an

eye on those we're not working any other

technical issues and the range is

expected to be green if we can't make

our test today we have backup launch

opportunities in the coming days could

be 24 to 48 hours all just depends on

how far we get into the count so check

back in with every in just a little bit

for now though I'm going to send it back

to Kate and Shiva out at

Hawthorne thanks Dan the countdown is

continuing to progress so let's take a

closer look at the world's most powerful

launch vehicle ever developed Starship

is comprised of two elements the ship

which has six Raptor engines and the

super heavy booster which has 33 Raptor

engines Starship is capable of about

twice the thrust of the Saturn 5 rocket

and with future engine upgrades it will

actually be three times as three times

more powerful now with those future

improvements that'll allow Starship to

carry somewhere between 150 and 250

metric tons to orbit depending on the

configuration for reference Falcon 99's

heaviest payload to date is just over 17

metric tons so at Starship we're talking

about an order of magnitude greater in

terms of payload capability to orbit and

that matters because the amount of mass

we able to launch per rocket is critical

to creating a self-sustaining City on

Mart in terms of size the super heavy

booster alone stands about 71 M or 233

feet tall and is about the same height

as a fully integrated Falcon 9 the ship

stands about 50 m or 160 feet tall

stacked together the booster and the

ship are by far taller than the Statue

of Liberty which stands at 305 ft tall

with its base stack together Starship is

396 ft so uh quite a bit taller there

now starship's first stage has a

diameter that's about 2 and a half times

that of Falcon 9 and we've got those 33

much larger Raptor engines this this

great view of the launch Mount looking

up at those engines and we need them to

power through the Earth's atmosphere and

gravity to deliver those massive cargo

uh and payloads up to space moving up

the rocket Starship is designed for

vertical takeoff and landing on any hard

surface and that's as opposed to taking

off and landing on a Runway as aircraft

do and that's important because there

are no runways on the moon and Mars

where we're going the ship which we're

looking at Now features six Raptor

engines three of them are sea-level

engines three of them are vacuum engines

that means that those vacuum engines are

optimized with a larger engine nozzle to

operate in the vacuum of space and get

her higher performance the ship is also

outfitted with four flaps to help

aerodynamically control the vehicle's

attitude during atmospheric flight and

enable a precise excuse me enable a

Precision Landing the body of Starship

is also wrapped in a heat shield made up

of 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles those

are designed to insulate the vehicle

during atmospheric entry where

temperatures can be as high as 2,600

Dees fhe one of our test objectives

today is to verify how Starship systems

and thermal protection system tiles

perform during R

entry and in between the first and

second stages is our hot stage which is

critical for our newest separation

technique which we saw in action during

flight test two yeah that was a pretty

exciting first for our team Hot staging

had never been done before as part of a

reusable reusable space transportation

system let alone on a vehicle with the

size and power of Starship now at about

liftoff plus two and a half minutes the

booster shut down most of its 33 engines

leaving just three of them running and

then the ship simultaneously ignited all

six of its engines some clamp separ and

the ship thrusted away that was the

first inlight test of the heat shield

and we were able to gather a ton of

valuable data about hot staging we

maximize the vehicle's performance by

leaving three first stage engines on so

gravity can't Rob us of precious

velocity or at least not as much hot

saging also helps to ensure the ship's

liquid propellants are at the bottom of

the propellant tanks which is where we

need them to be in order to quickly

light the ship's engines it also reduces

risk at stage separation because it

creates a passive staging system so that

physics will be doing the work instead

of mechanical Parts pushing the two

stages away from each other ultimately

hot staging could increase starship's

payload to orbit capacity by 10% which

directly translates to more payload and

more people to the moon and

Mars now the first stop will be the moon

and the SpaceX team has been hard at

work proving out all the systems

necessary to make that possible critical

systems for propulsion life support and

even the elevator that you see here

which will take crew and cargo from the

Starship hatches down to the lunar

surface are currently in development and

the data that we gather from each test

flight helps inform their design here

we've uh got a photo of some of the

mockup suits that are used to

demonstrate the range of Mobility that

uh AST astronauts will be expected to

have and we were using these to do human

factors demonstrations and figure out

the layout of the elevator so all

awesome development work for a future

moon mission super cool now SpaceX will

perform one uncrewed demonstration

flight before NASA's Artemis 3 mission

which will be the first human surface

Expedition since

1972 after those first Expeditions we'll

be ready to fly more people along with

everything it takes to build a moon base

there's so much to look forward to it's

incredible that humans are finally going

back to the Moon you cann't have said it

better Kate and the Moon is just the

Proving Ground it's just the start when

the time comes to make the leap to Mars

everything ramps up by orders of

magnitude the logistics of supporting an

entire city on Mars are daunting and

will require millions of pounds of cargo

flown from Earth and spread out over

thousands of launches and today's flight

test is one more step toward that

ultimate goal we're currently at T minus

11 minutes 47 seconds let's check in

with Dan once again for a countdown

update hey Kate uh still still good news

from down here at Starbase we're not

tracking any technical issues that are

going to block us to a launch our t0o

time still holding to 8:25 a.m. Central

so just about 11 and a half minutes from

now uh the real thing we're going to

keep an eye on is the winds once we get

there we do have that potential hold at

t- minus 40 seconds where we can hang

out and either let winds die down make

sure we're in the right structural

limits everything like that uh so don't

be surprised if we do a hold at T minus

40 we've done those on previous flights

uh but we are not tracking any technical

issues the range is going to be green

for launch so all that really great news

uh we're still loading propellant on the

vehicle on the ship we're just about

done loading the header tanks the two

smaller tanks in the top uh and then

we'll go back to the main tanks are

about 85% full and then booster both

Fuel and locks over 80% um so looking

good there the launch pad itself is

getting ready for liftoff we commanded

the booster hold Downs open already

about about 20 minutes ago or so and

then that just means that once that

rocket has sufficient thrust to overcome

its weight your thrust to weight ratio

goes over one it's going to lift off we

don't have a command to actually release

the hold Downs once it starts up uh just

also a reminder actual liftoff happens a

few seconds after you see those engines

ignite so you'll see fire and then a few

seconds before Starship really starts to

take to the skies our range team just

going to keep on making sure land sea

air all clear as we really count down

but that's the latest we're just coming

up on 10 minutes before launch

everything looking good for starship's

third test flight it's also back to you

guys in

Hawthorne great thanks Dan now if you've

been following SpaceX over the years

you've no doubt heard us talk about our

goal of full and Rapid reusability

nearly all of the Falcon boosters flown

last year and this year have been reused

or as we like to say flight proven we've

landed Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy

boosters 283 times since first doing so

in 2015 and with Starship our mission is

to take reusability even further by

refly both stages with little downtime

between flights and we ply we plan to

fly as often as possible as we mentioned

earlier rapid and complete reusability

is critical to enabling routine space

flight the team at Starbase has been

hard at work developing and

Manufacturing the hardware that will

ultimately take humans back and forth to

the moon and Mars now even though we are

not recovering Starship today test

flights like these provide the critical

data that we need through every phase of

flight and that data informs future

missions and gets us to that future

where starships are being recovered and

rapidly Reflow our teams are also

working on the ground systems that will

support rapid reusability when we start

recovering Starship boosters we'll want

them to return to the launch site for a

quicker turnaround as you can see here

uh depicted in this animation on your

screen this is when the tower reveals

its dual purpose after launch the arms

or the chopsticks on the tower will help

guide the booster into position to

ensure a soft Landing now if you were

thinking that this sounds hard or even

impossible to do well that's the

inspiration for naming them Chopsticks

some of you might recall a little film

called The Karate Kid where Mr Miyagi

famously taught the main character

Daniel that if he could reach excuse me

that if he could catch a fly with

chopsticks he could accomplish anything

now today we do have four ships and four

super heavy boosters built with more

coming off the production line as our

star Factory continues to grow these

vehicles are slated for future flight

test just like today's and in fact just

this week we static fired our next ship

that's planning to fly and expect to

test the booster as soon as the launch

Mount is free from today's flight test

uh now as a reminder today is still just

a test while we really hope to get our

splash down location in the Indian Ocean

but any data received will help us

improve it's the third of many future