Video of Starship during flight test 3 | |
Mission type | Flight test |
---|---|
Operator | SpaceX |
Mission duration | 49 minutes, 35 seconds (achieved) [1] 1 hour, 4 minutes, 39 seconds (planned) |
Orbits completed | <1 |
Spacecraft properties | |
Spacecraft | Starship Ship 28 |
Spacecraft type | Starship |
Manufacturer | SpaceX |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | March 14, 2024, 13:25:00 UTC (8:25 am CDT) |
Rocket | Super Heavy (B10) |
Launch site | Starbase, OLM-A |
End of mission | |
Destroyed | March 14, 2024, 14:14:35 UTC (9:14:35 am CDT) [1] |
Orbital parameters | |
Regime | Suborbital (achieved) [1] Transatmospheric Earth orbit (planned) [1] |
Periapsis altitude | -50 km (achieved) [1] 50 km (31 mi) (planned) [1] |
Apoapsis altitude | 234 km (145 mi) (achieved) [1] 235 km (146 mi) (planned) [2] |
Inclination | 26.5° [1] |
![]() Mission patch |
Starship flight test 3 was the third flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on March 14, 2024. [3] [4]
Starship successfully completed a full-duration second stage burn, reaching the intended orbital velocity for the first time, but broke up during re-entry in the atmosphere. [4] [5] [6]
After the second flight test in November 2023 ended in the destruction of both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft, 17 significant changes were made to the vehicles, including upgrading the ship to an electric thrust vector control (TVC) system [7] [ failed verification ] (the booster had been upgraded for the second flight test [8] ) and delaying the vent of liquid oxygen (LOX) to after Starship engine cutoff (SECO). [7]
SpaceX upgraded the orbital tank farm with additional subcoolers and pumps to increase the propellant flow rate. In addition, two water tanks were removed and scrapped. Steel plates have been added to concrete at the base of the launch tower due to erosion from the engines. A concrete wall has replaced the HESCO barriers previously protecting the tank farm. [9]
![]() | This section needs expansionwith: with information about the actual "Development prior to launch". You can help by adding to it. (March 2024) |
Testing of the Flight 3 vehicles began just under a month after second flight test, [10] [11] with S28 and B10 undergoing their individual static fire tests in late December 2023. [12] [13] The FAA closed its mishap investigation of the second flight test on February 26, 2024. In the mishap report, SpaceX identified 17 corrective actions, of which ten were for the Starship upper stage and seven for the Super Heavy booster. [14] Booster 10 and S28 conducted a wet dress rehearsal on March 3, 2024. [15] On March 5, 2024, SpaceX announced that they were targeting a launch date of March 14, 2024, pending regulatory approval. [16] [17] On March 13, 2024, the FAA granted the launch license for this flight, the third flight test. [18]
Starship flight test 3 launched from the SpaceX Starbase facility along the South Texas coast around 8:25 CDT. As with the second flight test, ignition of all 33 booster engines and stage separation were both successful. [19] B10 conducted a boostback burn. However, 6 engines began shutting down unexpectedly causing a premature boostback shutdown; the planned landing in the Gulf of Mexico was not successful due to the same six engines that failed before being disabled leaving seven engines commanded to startup with two successfully reaching ignition. Following the failures, SpaceX reported that the booster was destroyed at an estimated altitude of approximately 462 metres (1,516 ft). [3] The cause of these failures was determined by SpaceX to be filter blockage of liquid oxygen to the engines. A similar problem occurred in the second flight test, leading Booster 10 to get upgraded filtering. [20]
The Starship spacecraft itself reached space and the intended orbital velocity. It then conducted several tests after engine cutoff, including a successful propellant transfer demo and payload dispenser test. It attempted to re-enter the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, and at an altitude of around 65 km, all telemetry from Ship 28 stopped, indicating a loss of the vehicle. [21] [22] [4] According to SpaceX, S28 was experiencing excessive roll rates causing it to have an "off-nominal entry". This was caused by clogging of the valves responsible for roll control on Starship. [20]
Time | Event | March 14, 2024 |
---|---|---|
−01:15:00 | SpaceX Flight Director conducts a poll and verifies go for propellant loading | Success |
−00:53:00 | Starship oxidizer loading (liquid oxygen) underway | Success |
−00:51:00 | Starship fuel loading (liquid methane) underway | Success |
−00:42:00 | Super Heavy oxidizer loading (liquid oxygen) underway | Success |
−00:41:00 | Super Heavy fuel loading (liquid methane) underway | Success |
−00:19:40 | Booster engine chill | Success |
−00:03:30 | Booster propellant load complete | Success |
−00:02:50 | Ship propellant load complete | Success |
−00:00:30 | SpaceX flight director verifies GO for launch | Success |
−00:00:10 | Flame deflector activation | Success |
−00:00:03 | Booster engine ignition | Success |
00:00:02 | Liftoff | Success |
00:00:52 | Max q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket) | Success |
00:02:42 | Booster Main Engine Cut Off (MECO) | Success |
00:02:44 | Starship engine ignition and stage separation (hot-staging) | Success |
00:02:55 | Booster boostback burn startup | Success |
00:03:50 | Booster boostback burn shutdown | 6 engines shut down due to LOX filter blockage, causing the burn to end prematurely [20] |
00:06:36 | Booster is transonic | Achieved later than planned due to off nominal trajectory caused by early boostback shutdown [20] |
00:06:46 | Booster landing burn startup | 7 engines commanded to start with only 2 igniting [20] |
00:07:04 | Booster landing burn shutdown | Loss of telemetry from booster at approximately 462 metres (1,516 ft) [20] |
00:08:35 | Starship engine cutoff (SECO) | Success |
00:11:56 | Payload door open | Success [20] |
00:24:31 | Propellant transfer demo | Success [20] |
00:28:21 | Payload door close | Success [20] |
00:40:46 | Raptor in-space relight demo | Skipped due to loss of roll control [20] |
00:49:05 | Starship entry | Stuck roll control valve during coast phase resulted in loss of control and vehicle telemetry was lost at an altitude of 65 km (40 mi) [20] |
01:02:16 | Starship is transonic | — |
01:03:04 | Starship is subsonic | — |
01:04:39 | Starship splashdown | — |
After the launch, SpaceX confirmed that Super Heavy was destroyed at 462 m above sea level over the Gulf of Mexico. [3] The status of the payload door test became one of the focuses of unofficial interpretations of the flight in YouTube and news articles, due to a perceived issue seen from the flight video concerning the payload door. SpaceX's account of the launch states that the payload test had been a success. [20]
Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said the company was still investigating the data and what went wrong in the third flight test, but that the fourth flight test could launch soon, possibly by early May. [24]
NASA chief Bill Nelson praised SpaceX for "a successful test flight". He also stated, "Today we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon - then look onward to Mars." SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk also praised the team and stated "Starship will take humanity to Mars." [25]
On March 14, 2024, the FAA declared that a mishap had occurred involving both the upper stage and booster, triggering the start of a SpaceX-led investigation overseen by the FAA. [26] The agency's associate administrator for commercial space transportation, Kelvin Coleman, said on March 18 that he did not anticipate any major issues that could delay the investigation. Additionally, there was talk for the FAA to begin issuing a "portfolio of launches", authorizing multiple launches rather than a single launch at a time, as part of a broader effort to streamline the launch license process in response to criticism from SpaceX and Congress that the FAA was moving too slow on approving them. [27] The next launch license will likely require modification, but Coleman said the FAA may be able to first complete a public safety determination, finding that there were no flaws in critical safety systems on the March launch that would have endangered the safety of the uninvolved public. If so, “that would decouple the mishap investigation from the license modification, and that means that we could get the license modification done while the mishap investigation is ongoing.” [28] However, both are still needed in order for a launch license to be granted. [29]
On April 5, SpaceX requested that the FAA agree that the third flight test mishap did not present a public safety issue. [30] On May 11, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk stated that the fourth Starship launch could occur in 3-5 weeks, bringing the date forward to early-mid June. The FAA investigation and launch license remained pending. [31] On May 17, the FAA made a statement that if the FAA agrees no public safety issues were involved in the mishap, SpaceX may return to flight while the third flight test investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met. [32] This statement does not constitute SpaceX being granted a Launch License. [32]
On May 24, SpaceX released a blog post stating the results from flight 3. According to SpaceX, during the boostback burn, 6 engines began to shut down, causing an early boostback shutdown. The vehicle prevented these engines from performing the landing burn, leaving only 7 engines. 2 of the engines were able to successfully ignite. The vehicle had lower than expected thrust, and it was lost at an altitude of 462 meters. The main likely cause of the boostback shutdown was due to filter blockage in the liquid oxygen intake, leading to loss of pressure in the oxygen turbopumps. According to SpaceX, several minutes after the ship engine cutoff (SECO), the valves responsible for the roll control thrusters were clogged. This precluded the in flight raptor relight test. Due to the unplanned roll, the ship experienced much higher heat loads in both unprotected and tiled sections.
In order to mitigate these issues, SpaceX has implemented hardware changes to the booster liquid oxygen tank to improve propellant filtration. SpaceX has also added more roll control thrusters on the ship for redundancy. Additionally, hardware and software changes were implemented to improve Raptor startup reliability. [20]
A reusable launch vehicle has parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as rocket engines and boosters can also be reused, though reusable spacecraft may be launched on top of an expendable launch vehicle. Reusable launch vehicles do not need to make these parts for each launch, therefore reducing its launch cost significantly. However, these benefits are diminished by the cost of recovery and refurbishment.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch service provider and satellite communications company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and ultimately developing a sustainable colony on Mars. The company currently produces and operates the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets along with the Dragon, and Starship as a hybrid between a rocket and a spacecraft.
New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the first American to travel into space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings. Additionally, it is also capable of carrying humans and customer payloads into a sub-orbital trajectory.
Launch vehicle system tests assess the readiness of a launch system to safely reach orbit. Launch vehicles undergo system tests before they launch. Wet dress rehearsals (WDR) and more extensive static fire tests prepare fully assembled launch vehicles and their associated ground support equipment (GSE) prior to launch. The spacecraft/payload may or may not be attached to the launch vehicle during the WDR or static fire, but sufficient elements of the rocket and all relevant ground support equipment are in place to help verify that the rocket is ready for flight.
SpaceX manufactures launch vehicles to operate its launch provider services and to execute its various exploration goals. SpaceX currently manufactures and operates the Falcon 9 Block 5 family of medium-lift launch vehicles and the Falcon Heavy family of heavy-lift launch vehicles – both of which are powered by SpaceX Merlin engines and employ VTVL technologies to reuse the first stage. As of 2024, the company is also developing the fully reusable Starship launch system, which will replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies over the last decade to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad, following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal would have been reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicle, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. Development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of developing Starship, however, SpaceX developed reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9.
Starbase is an industrial complex for Starship rockets, located near Brownsville, Texas, United States. It has been under construction since the late 2010s by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. Starbase is composed of a spaceport near the Gulf of Mexico, a production facility at the Boca Chica village, and a small structure test site along the Texas State Highway 4.
As of 2023, SpaceX operates four launch facilities: Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), Vandenberg Space Force Base Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E), Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), and Brownsville South Texas Launch Site (Starbase). Space Launch Complex 40 was damaged in the AMOS-6 accident in September 2016 and repair work was completed by December 2017. SpaceX believes that they can optimize their launch operations, and reduce launch costs, by dividing their launch missions amongst these four launch facilities: LC-39A for NASA launches, SLC-40 for United States Space Force national security launches, SLC-4E for polar launches, and South Texas Launch Site for commercial launches.
Falcon 9 Full Thrust is a partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the third major version of the Falcon 9 family, designed starting in 2014, with its first launch operations in December 2015. It was later refined into the Block 4 and Block 5. As of 12 August 2024, all variants of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust had performed 343 launches with only one failure of Starlink Group 9-3. Based on the Laplace point estimate of reliability, this rocket is the most reliable orbital launch vehicle in operation.
Starship is a two-stage fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX. As of July 2024, it is the most massive and powerful vehicle ever to fly. SpaceX has developed Starship with the intention of lowering launch costs using economies of scale. SpaceX aims to achieve this by reusing both rocket stages, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, creating a mass-manufacturing pipeline and adapting it to a wide range of space missions. Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's reusable launch system development program and plan to colonize Mars.
Falcon 9 Block 5 is a partially reusable, human-rated, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the fifth major version of the Falcon 9 family and the third version of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust. It is powered by Merlin 1D engines burning rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen (LOX).
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Starship is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, the Super Heavy, it composes SpaceX's new super heavy-lift space vehicle, also called Starship. The spacecraft is designed to transport both crew and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. It is intended to enable long duration interplanetary flights with a crew of up to 100 people. It will also be capable of point-to-point transport on Earth, enabling travel to anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Furthermore, the spacecraft will be used to refuel other Starship vehicles to allow them to reach higher orbits and other space destinations. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, estimated in a tweet that 8 launches would be needed to completely refuel a Starship in low Earth orbit, extrapolating this from Starship's payload to orbit and how much fuel a fully fueled Starship contains. To land on bodies without an atmosphere, such as the Moon, Starship will fire its engines and thrusters to slow down.
Before settling on the 2018 Starship design, SpaceX successively presented a number of reusable super-heavy lift vehicle proposals. These preliminary spacecraft designs were known under various names.
Starship flight test 2 was the second flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on November 18, 2023. The mission's primary objectives were for the vehicle to hot stage—a new addition to Starship's flight profile—followed by the second stage attaining a near-orbital trajectory with a controlled reentry over the Pacific Ocean, while the booster does a boostback burn with a propulsive splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
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