Keith’s note: the SpaceX Starship made an apparently flawless launch and return landing this morning – a landing that included being caught by two giant robotic arms at its launch pad – all while its upper stage – the Starship has been placed in its desired orbit. Update: I spoke with Deutsche Welle after the flight about the mission and its significance. [Audio]
Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member... More by Keith Cowing
One anomaly. At about 5 minutes, something separated from the booster. It looks like the skirt around the engines fell off and something was on fire.
Still, a great accomplishment!
You could see one of the Chine was damaged as it hang on the chopsticks. But seemed like a minor issue maybe redundant eapu for tvc or something.
Yeah, something blew out that chine, it wasn’t from impacting the tower. Seemed similar to flight 4 with a fairly significant flame going up one side, not clear if the cause is related. Someone pointed out that a number of the bells on the outer engines were warped/dented. I can vaguely see that, but hard to tell if it’s an optical illusion or real. There was burn-through on at least one flap, but better than before.
That was not an anomaly. It was a planned ejection of the hot stage ring. IFT-4 did the same thing.
Starship is the most exciting and critical thing happening in the US space program today. It has to be proven or else there is no Artemis Program and no new Moon landing anytime on the horizon. But I notice NASA chooses not to recognize it. NASA acts like it doesn’t exist, NASA keeps hyping each laborious step in assembling the SLS for Artemis 2. Fifteen years ago the same steps on a Shuttle were not worthy to even identify except on someone’s flow chart. Meanwhile they have not resolved the Orion heatshield issue. It appears Artemis 2 will slip to mid 2025 and if the Orion heatshield needs to be redesigned, maybe a lot longer.
mid 2026