SpaceX achieved 98+% orbital velocity today during their third Starship Super-Heavy test launch from Boca Chica, Texas. Liftoff was at 8:25 AM CDT (9:25 AM local time.) That was about an hour after the planned liftoff because of vessels intruding into waters beneath flight path, but once those areas were cleared, the countdown continued with no technical problems.

An Hour Of Pure Space Excitement

Following its launch, Starship’s flight continued nominally through staging, where the second stage — “Ship” in SpaceX parlance — continued on, threading its way through the Florida Straits, and out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Meanwhile, the first stage performed re-entry and boostback burns, but a soft landing was unsuccessful, as it appeared that the company lost control of the booster prior to its final landing burn. Telemetry suggested that the first stage impacted at great speed — below the speed of sound (768 miles per hour at sea level) but too high to call the landing an attempt a total success.

Once Ship was safely at its terminal suborbital velocity, SpaceX performed propellant transfer and payload door opening testing during its roughly thirty minute coast phase. Another objective — re-lighting the engines while at orbital velocity was skipped. The company did not comment in its livestream the results of the tests.

The reentry phase of the test flight was a partial success: Starship re-entered off the coast of Africa, and SpaceX delighted viewers with perhaps the first live views of a spacecraft re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. Plasma was seen flowing around the spacecraft and for a time, hopes were high that the test flight would conclude with a soft touchdown over water.

That was not to be on this day: “We have lost Ship 28,” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company’s webcast.

Still, Starship flew farther and higher than on previous tests, and nearly achieved orbit. Full orbital velocity was not the goal of Flight 3, as it was always intended to fly a roughly half-orbit around the globe. SpaceX successfully completed its ascent regimen, and gained valuable data on other aspects of today’s mission.

Results

In their mission description, SpaceX stated before the flight that “The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship.”

They added, “It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.”

Objective	Result
Successful Ascent Burn Of Both Stages	Success
Opening And Closing of Payload Doors	Success*
On-Orbit Propellant Transfer Demonstration	Success*
Relight of a Raptor Engine	Not Tested
Controlled Re-Entry of Starship	Partial Success

SpaceX Official Statement

SpaceX has released an official statement on their website regarding today’s flight:

Next Steps

Undoubtedly, SpaceX gained valuable test data and experience from today’s flight. No date has been set for a Flight 4 of Starship as of yet, and it will likely take time to gather, review and learn from today’s flight. That in turn will inform improvements for Flight 4, and it is likely that some of today’s secondary objectives will be promoted to a higher level of importance.

It is important to remember that SpaceX is using a development policy similar to the very early days of the American space program: Test, Fail, Learn, Improve, Test Again, all in rapid succession.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, test flights at the Eastern Range and other facilities (White Sands, etc.) were rapid and often ended up in fiery explosions or other failures. To the public, it often appeared that engineers and scientists were fighting a losing battle, but the truth was that they were learning what worked, what didn’t work and where improvements were needed to be made in order to achieve the program’s goals. Over time, that led to successful satellite launches, crewed flights and ultimately the first footprints on the moon.

Given SpaceX’s advancements and improvements with each successive Starship flight, it’s fair to say that they too will achieve their program goals. It’s also fair to say that they will be back on the launch pad in Texas sooner rather than later for another try.

Perhaps former NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson put it best when he recently commented, “Never bet against SpaceX.” At the end of the day, the Artemis Project took a nice step forward today, and while there is a long way to go before HLS is ready to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface, we did take a small step before that giant leap.