Today, the 18th of November 2023, SpaceX launched its Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle for the second time ever! Starship-Super Heavy launched at the start of its window lifting off at 07:02 am Central Standard Time and continuing powered flight for a little over eight minutes!
The Super Heavy booster lit all thirty-three of its engines with all of them lasting up until hot staging of Ship 25 from Booster 9. The booster however experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly while attempting to perform its boostback burn.
After hot staging, the six Raptor engines, three sea-level engines and three vacuum engines, continued to power the second stage flight for six minutes before Ship 25 also experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly for unknown reasons.
Despite not landing the booster in the Gulf of Mexico or the ship near Hawaii, SpaceX has considered the mission a success and said the following on their website after the launch;
"Starship returned to integrated flight testing with it’s second launch from Starbase in Texas. While it didn’t happen in a lab or on a test stand, it was absolutely a test. What we did will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship." – "Starship successfully lifted off under the power of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster and made it through stage separation. The booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after stage separation while Starship's engines fired for several minutes on its way to space." – "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary." – "We’ll continue to share updates here as the team reviews data from today’s test. Thank you to our customers, Cameron County, and the wider community for the continued support and encouragement. And congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting second flight test of Starship!"
It's unknown when Starship-Super Heavy will fly again but as of writing the launch site is believed to have no major damage.
How does this compare to Starship's previous flight?
Back on the 20th of April 2023, SpaceX launched Starship-Super Heavy for its maiden flight where it had planned to make it to Hawaii with the ship and the Gulf of Mexico with the booster but lost the ship four minutes into flight. During its maiden launch, the ship failed to separate from the booster and flew uncontrolled after a fire broke out in the aft end of the booster which triggered the flight termination system. The flight termination system took a few minutes to destroy Starship-Super Heavy, however.
The Super Heavy booster during Starship-Super Heavy's first flight also lost at least eight engines of its thirty-three as well as a failure of its hydraulic thrust vector controls. The Booster also managed to destroy the ground under the launch pad due to a lack of adequate damage mitigation methods from the insane amount of thrust under the booster.
What is Starship-Super Heavy?
Starship-Super Heavy is SpaceX's in-development fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle. SpaceX is currently aiming to have the launch vehicle deliver one hundred and fifty tons to low Earth orbit while reused or two hundred and fifty tons when expended.
Super Heavy is the first stage booster for the Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle and is planned to be reused, it is also currently the most powerful rocket stage ever flown. The Super Heavy booster is seventy-one meters tall and nine meters wide. The booster is powered by thirty-three Raptor engines burning liquid methane and liquid oxygen with a maximum thrust of 7590 tons. Super Heavy is believed to weigh two hundred tons empty and three thousand six hundred tons fully fuelled. For reusability, Super Heavy will launch from the Orbital Launch Mount and will then perform a boost back burn and land on the 'chopsticks' of the launch tower, also called Mechazilla, using its grid fins at the top for greater aerodynamic control during unpowered flight. Super Heavy also has a hot-staging ring atop of it to improve the performance of the Starship-Super Heavy stack and simplify the staging process.
Starship is the second stage of the Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle and is planned to be reused. The Starship second stage is fifty meters tall and nine meters wide. The second stage is powered by three sea-level Raptor engines and three vacuum Raptor Engines with plans to increase it to six in the future, these engines burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen with a maximum thrust of 1500 tons. Starship is believed to weigh one hundred tons empty and one thousand three hundred tons fully fuelled. For reusability, Starship will separate from the booster, Super Heavy, in flight and continue up toward orbit. After a few orbits Starship will perform a deorbit burn and re-enter the atmosphere, after re-entry, Starship will aim to land on the chopsticks' of the launch tower, also called Mechazilla.
