Wow! SpaceX Starship re-enters Earth's atmosphere during 4th flight, splashes down!

plasma beginning to build as the ship is getting closer to the Earth's atmosphere now how let's talk a little bit about how starf will survive re-entry hopefully and control itself exactly we've been talking about this this entire flight test there's 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles surrounding the bottom portion or the Earth facing side of the ship 100 K altitude good altitude for entry great call outs there now during atmospheric re-entry the vehicle is going to see temperatures as high as 2600 de F or over, 1400° C so those tiles are there to help protect the vehicle from this extreme heat yeah and the flaps will help control it now one noticeable difference I see immediately um those flaps are not moving as much as they were on flight three so that is a great sign right we had uh unplanned loss of uh roll control on flight three so we added some additional thrusters and we can see that uh they're working well and we have a much stable more stable view so these flaps there's four of them two at the top and two at the bottom um they're made out of stainless steel and uh yeah they they help steer steer the ship which as we can see the plasma continuing to build uh now if the ship survives re-entry it will have to perform a flip maneuver uh as well as a landing burn we saw this demonstrated a c in a couple of high altitude flight tests back in like 2020 2021 um similarly temp increasing on the nose Within un expected ranges great news there uh it sounds like the temperatures that we are getting during this point which again we usually don't get during space flight because of this plasma we're getting this live this is a great news so similarly to uh for example the the seral number 10 test that we saw a couple years ago we're hoping to duplicate that again today hopefully we will see it live um and basically the three Center engines of the ship will reignite um and gimbal or point to help flip the ship until those engines are pointing down uh so that it can land vertically using Raptor's thrust and as you can see even from the beginning of the program we've designed Starship to land on Mars where there are no runways or other humans to help out we also want rapid reusability so we're doing vehicle is passing through 85 km altitude the flaps have control of the vehicle great news flaps have control of the vehicle that's exactly what we want to hear for this fight test yeah um again we are going to be doing a propulsive Landing instead of a more traditional means like parachutes and we are expecting re-entry to begin here in just about a minute re-entry and awesome view that we have here this is the same view that we had when we first uh returned from the coast phase again this is looking at the side of one of the flaps it's incredible that literally at the bottom of this picture we're basically looking through plasma which is just absolutely mindblowing wild very wild now we are expecting entry to begin here in about 30 seconds or so entry to splash down is expected to last about 6 minutes long and that flip maneuver should occur around about 10 minutes before splash down and such incredible views we getting approaching Peak heating region great call outs there there yeah these views are absolutely astounding those temperatures continue to rise within expected region and in your bottom right hand corner you can also follow along with the altitude of ship as it's returning back to Earth so once again this view is basically looking down into the plasma blanket that is building up around uh the exterior of Starship it is traveling as you can see on your screen you can look in the bottom right hand corner and see how fast it's going how high it is as well as the general orientation again we're seeing a lot more stability a lot more control here on this flight which is great it shows that the iterations Starship is now an expected Peak heating region all right great news there telling us that this is basically the hottest point uh that Starship should get uh during its re-entry now the heat shield is working with the atmosphere for some like free breaking okay the the atmosphere is helping to slow the Starship down yeah exactly we're not using any engines or thrust to slow the vehicle down exactly what Kate mentioned we're just using the atmosphere and those heat shield tiles protecting the vehicle as it's coming through that high heat temperature yeah now this is another one of those moments that we have been waiting for right now the ship is currently re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and by all looks and all call outs that we're hearing on the net it is doing pretty well now we do not plan to recover the spacecraft today but rapid and Reus excuse me rapid and reliable reusability is the ultimate goal and just pausing to just take in this incredible new and different view that we're seeing we did get a similar view in flight three uh but again the vehicle did lose a little bit of its control attitude control um and this is a very stable view this is great this is exactly what we want and we are hearing that we're getting expected call outs AB Starship is saying half a g of acceleration remains on a good entry trajectory you know it's incredible to look at this photo and wonder wait is it real is it Frozen um you know we can see the yeah so I was just going to say we those temperatures have stopped increasing oh that is great news uh the temperature is no longer building um but I was saying like we we have a little bit of indication there we can see that streaking occurring that occurs and tells us that this is this is indeed a a a true view so once again we are looking basically through the plasma that is building up through or excuse me around the exterior of the ship and I still cannot get over that we are getting a live view of re-entry right now live on your screen again we've said this over and over but all thanks to starlink we are able to use starlink in space which we're getting this incredible data and not only just the the data from the sensors but getting live imagery of what is actually happening which is great which we've never been able to do um live before right now just a quick um uh future outlook here so in about uh uh let's see at t+ about 1 hour and 2 minutes we should hear uh a call out for entry transonic that means that the ship is going near the speed of sound and then about a minute after that we'll hear another call out saying entry subsonic meaning that the ship is going below the speed of sound so these are all continued indications that uh the atmosphere right as the ship comes back down it is getting through the the the more dense part of the atmosphere and that atmosphere is helping to push against the vehicle and those heat shields are protecting the vehicle during this high heat period yeah Kate and Jesse we're we're starting to see as the atmosphere gets denser you're starting to see a few more particles make an appearance in the plasma there you can see you're looking down at the AFT end of the ship in the top left and you're you're seeing essentially the flame build up as we go through re-entry um you've been hearing the call outs the they're tracking things like temperatures and the nose cone and those uh were right where we modeled them to be which is really cool to see and to see in real time um but we're coming up we're at about 67 kilm in altitude our last signal with the ship on flight three was at 65 so we should be making it past that point shortly obviously as you guys pointed out we're in a much better control this time as we re-entered in the right at attitude uh and our flaps have been steering the way so far uh once we get through transonic that's when you've got essentially different areas around the vehicle where the air is either moving faster or slower than the speed of sound we'll eventually get to uh subsonic which we have some experience with we did in our suborbital campaign St Starship will eventually get down to its terminal velocity as it's floating down to the water that's just about 200 milph or so we are hearing that we're starting to chill some of the engines as we are if we make it all the way down to the water still going to attempt a landing burn but still still a ways to go we're at about 64 km in altitude right now we made it through what's expected to be the peak heating but now we're going to start encountering increased pressures as the atmosphere gets thicker and thicker so we're at 63 km so we've already made it farther than we did on our last flight when that last signal was coming at 65 km so again what what we're really looking at here is the performance of the heat shield of the flaps of the seals and the flaps there's just a whole bunch of different areas that we're keeping a really close eye on as we reenter Starship remains on a good entry trajectory and looking like we're still on a good trajectory if you're seeing little camera moves that's the flap moving as it continues to maintain uh the attitude of the vehicle as it re-enters and I mean not just camera views but we've got sensors inside the ship we've got those sensors down at the very aft end of the vehicle where we pointed out we had some intentionally missing tiles where we've got some sensors looking at just how hot it's getting around there we intentionally put those in essentially the least critical part of the heat shield um where if if you had any kind of a breach it wouldn't be great for reusability but wouldn't be critical for actual uh making it through the re-entry into the land 58 km we're continuing to descend again right now we are we are over the Indian Ocean we're actually getting closer and closer to that expected splash down point which is just to the uh off the northwest corner of Australia and if you keep you keep an eye on our speed the speed is dropping we're we're hitting the thicker part of the atmosphere now the speed's going to start dropping precipitously we're going to start getting to to transonic pretty soon and then after that we'll get into subsonic where we're we're moving less than the speed of sound but wow what a light show so far external temperatures are signs to come down this camera view is looking right at one of the the forward flaps and we're we're strategically putting some cameras around the vehicle to just look at the the different areas that looks like we got the flap starting to come part A little yeah it does appear that we have a little bit of burn through there we can see pieces of the vehicle flying off what a show it has been it's been like watching Interstellar or something this is wild to see this but the ship is still coming down which is incredible to see how far can it go that is the question keep your eye on the altitude in the bottom right hand corner we're at 54 km right now now ultimately the data is the payload today we've been saying it multiple times we're the you know our teams are are sitting uh reviewing this data live learning where the hot spots are as you can see there's an obvious Hot Spot there with the flap um and learning how we can improve this design the goal was to get as far through this High uh this high heat re-entry as possible ideally we'd love to make it all the way down and perform that uh that Landing burn and flip maneuver but we may not get that far today we will see again this is a test and we are gathering as much data as possible visual data as well which we can see here we are getting a lot of debris covering the camera on your screen but we can still see some of those Sparks and Flames from that high heat as ship is making its way back down to Earth Ship now at 50 kilm and closing the good news is we still got oh looks like that camera lens just cracked it's safe to say ship's getting a little beat up but that's to be expected on a test flight we are still learning how to improve the ship for total survival and recovery of the high heat re-entry I'm honestly impressed that we're still getting this live view despite how much debris is coming off of this lap right now the fact that we've got it is good news and I I may have jinxed it I apologize look at that it's back we are still going and the teams here at SpaceX are excited as you can tell by the cheering behind us there's still a sizable crowd here at Mission Control Center Hawthorne a splash down is expected in just about 4 minutes from now and we're still moving we still have live views starlink is doing incred maximum entry Dynamic pressure external temperatures are dropping okay good news those external pressures are dropping the question is how much the ship is left we can't really tell we can still see uh some of that particulate coming off um and unfortunately we do have a cracked camera lens but for any photographer out there and uh videographers we know that's that's part of the gig sometimes yeah and you can see that the speed is rapidly slowing down that's actually really great news for us we want the vehicle to be slowing down before it splashes down into the ocean that will help set us up for that flip maneuver engines first down into the water exactly so we have seen this flip maneuver demonstrated on previous high altitude flight tests like uh serial number eight oh more views uh or I should say more light coming through the view that we have through that uh cracked and and dirty lens there um but yeah so we're hoping that this flip maneuver that we can we can pull it off um soon as we get those views back if we can get them uh if the ship is still around we will bring has passed maximum Dynamic pressure that is great news maximum Dynamic pressure being the moment in which the vehic iicle experiences the greatest amount of uh aerodynamic pressure speed still dropping we're now at 37 km above the ocean just like flight three we are targeting a SP uh splash down in the water in the Indian Ocean and we don't have a live view right now but because we're still getting data and Telemetry that does tell us that ship is still doing okay at least and there we got that live view back the crowd very excited to see that view despite not being able to see very much the fact that it's there tells us the ship is still alive yes and collecting data continuing to collect data as we get closer and closer to Earth yes now 30 kilomet now 29 above the at 30 km altitude mark two sounds like the vehicle's traveling as we just heard um mock 2 which is uh oh looks like we might oh I I thought maybe it might clear up it is a little bit um now at t plus 1 Hour 3 minutes and 13 seconds into Starship flight 4 hoping that the ship can hang on it's probably potentially Hanging On by a couple of bolts and threads uh but it's still going and that is excellent news that deceleration is looking incredible we're about to go under 1,000 km per hour yeah Starship is at 20 km altitude now keep in mind that even though we can't see anything uh the the P the DAT the data itself is what we really uh are is subsonic subsonic they're telling us it's traveling below the speed of sound that movement means the flaps are actuating I think we can see [Applause] something this is a nailbiter but we are unfortunately we can't see through the through the the the lens but we're still getting the feed uh Starship is now uh 11 km over the ocean all this data is incredibly important even if uh you know if breaks up right now okay we can see that flap actuating through the glass star should be passing through 10 CL of altitude okay the next Milestone will be initiation of the flip maneuver and Landing burn keep an eye on the bottom right corner of your screen for those three Center engines to relight they will gimal or uh angle so that the ship flips itself back up vertical and hopefully lands in a vertical position and the crowd is very excited to get this view of that flap still maneuvering is passing through 5 km altitude this is incredible we're getting very close to splash down these fireflies are such a good sign of life right now wish we could see more but we'll take it Starship is at 2 of altitude terminal veloc Landing game startup for Starship all right good news there Landing start up stship is in landing B Landing bur shut down the The Landing burd shutdown was commanded [Applause] [Music] wow I I mean we it was a little bit of use your imagination as you were going down with what we could actually see but we were able to hear uh the ship did its Landing burn it sounded like might got two engines and there's the final call for landing burn shut down but we'll we'll go back through all the data but we did get confirmation that a landing burn took place Starship made it through re-entry uh and did its first ever Landing burn from South Texas to the other side of the earth Starship is in the water

Channel: VideoFromSpace

Views: 499,951

Keywords: spacex, starship, reentry, earth, atmosphere, splash down, flap, SC02918, spaceflight, sspaleta, space.com

Id: rXRVtt8M9oY

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024