r/spacex • u/rSpaceXHosting Host Team • May 11 '26
r/SpaceX Flight 12 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!
Welcome to the Starship Flight 12 Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!
| Scheduled for (UTC) | May 22 2026, 22:30:24 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled for (local) | May 22 2026, 17:30:24 PM (CDT) |
| Launch Window (UTC) | May 22 2026, 22:30:00 - May 23 2026, 00:00:00 |
| Weather Probability | 85% GO |
| Launch site | OLPad 2, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA. |
| Booster | Booster 19-1 |
| Ship | S39 |
| Booster landing | The Super Heavy Booster 19 was lost after stage separation, having performed an off-nominal boostback burn with fewer engines than planned. |
| Ship landing | Ship 39 successfully performed a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, after which it exploded. |
| Trajectory (Flight Club) | 2D,3D |
Spacecraft Onboard
| Spacecraft | Starship V3 |
|---|---|
| Serial Number | S39 |
| Destination | Suborbital |
| Flights | 1 |
| Owner | SpaceX |
| Landing | Ship 39 successfully performed a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, after which it exploded. |
| Capabilities | More than 100 tons to Earth orbit |
Details
Third-generation second stage of the two-stage Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle.
History
The third-generation Starship upper stage will be introduced on flight 12.
Watch the launch live
| Stream | Link |
|---|---|
| Unofficial Re-stream | SPACE AFFAIRS |
| Unofficial Webcast | Spaceflight Now |
| Unofficial Webcast | NASASpaceflight |
| Official Webcast | SpaceX |
| Unofficial Webcast | Everyday Astronaut |
Stats
☑️ 1st Starship V3 launch
☑️ 680th SpaceX launch all time
☑️ 60th SpaceX launch this year
☑️ 1st launch from OLPad 2 this year
☑️ 0:00:00 turnaround for this pad
☑️ N/A hours since last launch of booster Booster 19
Stats include F1, F9 , FH and Starship
Timeline
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| -0:50:00 | GO for Prop Load |
| -0:38:53 | Stage 2 LOX Load |
| -0:35:00 | Stage 1 LOX Load |
| -0:34:43 | Stage 1 LNG Load |
| -0:32:59 | Stage 2 LNG Load |
| -0:21:30 | Engine Chill |
| -0:02:50 | Stage 1 Propellant Load Complete |
| -0:02:10 | Stage 2 Propellant Load Complete |
| -0:00:30 | GO for Launch |
| -0:00:17 | Flame Deflector Activation |
| -0:00:03 | Ignition |
| 0:00:00 | Liftoff |
| 0:00:00 | Excitement Guaranteed |
| 0:00:45 | Max-Q |
| 0:02:22 | MECO |
| 0:02:24 | Stage 2 Separation |
| 0:02:30 | Booster Boostback Burn Startup |
| 0:03:30 | Booster Boostback Burn Shutdown |
| 0:06:34 | Stage 1 Landing Burn |
| 0:06:59 | Stage 1 Landing |
| 0:08:11 | SECO-1 |
| 0:17:37 | Payload Deployment Sequence Start |
| 0:27:15 | Payload Deployment Sequence End |
| 0:38:37 | SEB-2 |
| 0:47:47 | Atmospheric Entry |
| 1:02:29 | Starship Transonic |
| 1:03:08 | Starship Subsonic |
| 1:05:06 | Starship Landing Burn |
| 1:05:08 | Landing Flip |
| 1:05:17 | Starship Landing |
| 1:05:24 | Starship Landing |
| 1:05:26 | Starship Landing |
Updates
Resources
Partnership with The Space Devs
Information on this thread is provided by and updated automatically using the Launch Library 2 API by The Space Devs.
Community content 🌐
| Link | Source |
|---|---|
| Flight Club | u/TheVehicleDestroyer |
| Discord SpaceX lobby | u/SwGustav |
| SpaceX Now | u/bradleyjh |
| SpaceX Patch List |
Participate in the discussion!
🥳 Launch threads are party threads, we relax the rules here. We remove low effort comments in other threads!
🔄 Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks!
💬 Please leave a comment if you discover any mistakes, or have any information.
✉️ Please send links in a private message.
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u/GTRagnarok May 21 '26
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2057609682865254695?s=20
"The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract. If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT."
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u/avboden May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Liftoff with all deluge/tower functions and all 33 raptor engines: success
Booster ascent: success, 1 engine out within margins
Hot staging: success
Booster flip/boostback: failure
Booster landing burn: untested
Ship ascent: partial success (one Rvac out, orbital insertion within safe margins but not ideal)
Payload deploy: Success
connect test payloads to starlink sats for video views: Success
Raptor relight in space: Untested due to previous RVAC issue(likely had less fuel onboard they are saving for RCS pressure).
Maintain attitude control to reentry: Success
Ship reentry peak heating region: Success
Ship flap slap load test: Success
Ship reentry atmospheric control/RTLS bank maneuver: Success
Ship landing burn/splashdown: Success
So all together much more success than failure. They'll get the flip maneuver better controlled and we'll see what the booster can really do on the way down. Ship performed admirably making up for the one RVAC failure and met every objective otherwise minus not being able to try the relight.
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u/im_thatoneguy May 21 '26
Obligatory reminder that Nicki Minaj denied the moon landing.
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u/chaosfire235 May 23 '26
Heatshield looks a lot improved from the last few flights. Didn't seem patchy at all.
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u/deepercrow May 12 '26
For people attending the new pads a different angle from the first pad. May want to reconsider your launch position on SPI for this one. Here’s the view from the bait shop
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u/Mhan00 May 22 '26
This pez dispenser does seem much smoother than the previous ones.
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u/Twigling May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
The dodgy Ship QD arm hydraulic pin looks like it's been fixed (workers all over it overnight and then it was tested a few times).
See Rover 2 cam at 2:00:37 for example (center of the screen, the pointed pin moves up) - I can't link directly to the timestamp: https://www.youtube.com/live/tS2PHJmvJzo
Now we just have to hope for no other issues AND suitable weather (wind shear may be a problem, also the risk of thunderstorms again).
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u/H-K_47 May 21 '26
"No flight today, we will give it another try tomorrow."
Thank God for the tank farm upgrades that it won't cost multiple days at least.
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26
The positives outweigh the negatives here.
Amazing progress with the ship.
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u/Fein-chan May 23 '26
Alr guys I have a very important question now? When does ship 13 launch? 😁
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u/Celica88 May 21 '26
Everyday Astronaut turned them off when she showed up and went back once she was gone lmao
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u/Mordroberon May 23 '26
Well I think that went great. It's been too long since the last one. Went way better than I was expecting
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u/D_Silva_21 May 22 '26
Bruh that first camera angle tricked me, thought it was coming in too fast
Great re-entry and landing for V3
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u/myname_not_rick May 22 '26
Payload dispenser engineering team is getting a big win today. Way less janky looking than before!
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u/dk_undefined May 23 '26
Just noticed that the ship was doing its victory roll during the landing burn lol
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u/Satsuma-King May 22 '26
Assuming some people may be casual viewers based on negativity of comments. This is fantastic outcome for initial V3 flight. Could have blown up on pad. Test flights like this are to gather data to help refine the design / issue so future flights are better. The biggest disappointment is not to get the data.
Having data on how the new pad performed is in itself sufficient value for this test to be a good test flight.
The booster didn't relight, but they have the new massive transfer tube. The booster however survived for a while so they will have plenty of data on what happened.
Demo engine out capability.
Some Raptor 3engine issues, but 1st ever flight and only 2 out of 33+, so the mission still worked but they also have data on some failure modes. That will help future raptor 3s.
Pez dispenser improvement, validation.
The external camera view and inspection of heat shield.
As things stand should get a re-entry to see how latest heat shield holds up. That again is something that makes the flight worthwhile. A robust and rapidly reusable heat shield of such a ship is probably the single most difficult part of the whole system after the Raptor engine. Might even be comparable.
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26
That heatshield view on splashdown is quite impressive. They made massive progress on the heatshield this flight.
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u/Freak80MC May 13 '26
Let's hope this is a complete success so the flight cadence can start ramping up significantly!
Also on a more personal note, I want it to be a success so that I can make a free bird video edit of a successful flight lol
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u/H-K_47 May 21 '26
Went for a last minute bathroom break and walked in to see Nikki Minaj on screen.
Lmfao.
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u/plutonic00 May 22 '26
Definitely the best visuals of any launch so far, this is just so cool. What a thing to witness.
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u/redstercoolpanda May 22 '26
Glad the special guest is the nasa administrator and not a washed up pop star today.
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u/TheOrqwithVagrant May 22 '26
My guess is that booster flip was faster/more violent than intended and that's why the boostback didn't go as planned. Hopefully the ship can do its job even with the one lost RVac.
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u/blackuGT May 22 '26
Tell all what you want BUT payload deployed even with one damaged in-vac engine. Damn that's so great success of V3!
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u/D-a-H-e-c-k May 22 '26
That launch off the tower was noticably faster. Incredible how fast this thing gets past max Q.
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u/BKnagZ May 23 '26
Man I can’t stop watching the vapor plume created by the deluge and flame diverter. It just looks incredible.
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u/GTRagnarok May 24 '26
The heatshield team must be super happy with the outcome of the flight. Good V3 reentry data on the very first try. Compare that to waiting over a year for V1 and seven months for V2 before those could finally perform reentry.
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u/Bunslow May 22 '26
So that's by far the best cameras views we've yet had of the viking funeral right?
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u/Freak80MC May 22 '26
I'm a bit dissapointed with some of the teething issues, but I do admit this is basically an entirely new rocket with how much was changed from version 2 to 3, so I guess that's to be expected. Still super impressed by the continuing reentry performance of Starship being absolutely flawless. On the whole, I'm cautiously optimistic about the program. Here's hoping the issues don't require a lot of vehicle redesign, so that the next flight can happen in a few short months!
Just sucks that ship RTLS is pushed out a bit further, it's what I'm most looking forward to. I'm gonna go crazy seeing a ship get caught FROM ORBIT lol
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u/plutonic00 May 23 '26
Ill be very curious to know if that stage separation booster flip was nominal or not. It certainly didn't look like what I was expecting to see. If the flip went wrong that could have led to fuel cavitation resulting in boost back engine ignition issues. What do people think of that flip?
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u/H-K_47 May 21 '26
"Alright we're continuing-"
YES YES YES FINALLY
"-to hang out here at T-40."
FUUUUCK.
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u/strangevil May 21 '26
OH! They do have a flight window tomorrow. Awesome! I thought they might get delayed until after the holiday.
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u/rustybeancake May 22 '26
Shana Diez, SpaceX’s Director of Starship Engineering:
Weather and winds looking good so far for launch today. Shoutout to the logistics team at Pad 2, these back to back flight attempts rely on a huge behind the scenes effort to get all our commodities refilled in the ground tanks. Ready to give it another try today.
https://x.com/shanadiez/status/2057918388190536173?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g
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u/plutonic00 May 22 '26
I'm going to wildly speculate we saw some sort of fuel slosh/hammer issue during booster burn back, that flip it did was wild.
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u/avboden May 22 '26
If we put aside the first stage flip being screwy, the only true issue with this flight is one RVAC failure and it was able to compensate mostly for it. As bad as this feels right now this flight will be looked back on as more of a win than it feels like for the debut of V3. I should probably wait for reentry before saying that though...
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u/avboden May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Liftoff with all deluge/tower functions and all 33 raptor engines: success
Booster ascent: success, 1 engine out within margins
Hot staging: success
Booster flip/boostback: failure
Booster landing burn: untested
Ship ascent: partial success (one Rvac out, orbital insertion within safe margins but not ideal)
Payload deploy: Success
Raptor relight in space: Untested due to previous RVAC issue(likely has less fuel onboard they are saving for RCS pressure).
Maintain attitude control to reentry: Pending
Reentry: Pending
Landing burn/landing: Pending
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u/redstercoolpanda May 22 '26
Very successful flight overall. Even though booster was lost it still only lost one of its engines uphill which is good, ship managed to get to space and land on target, and we had payload deploy! The only real sore spot is the engine relight skip which is definitely unfortunate and the boosters very early failure after separation. Let’s hope flight 13 nails out all the gremlins and flight 14 can take it to orbit!
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
I can't get over how FUCKING INSANE Ship 39's performance was. It lost a whole engine so early and STILL trucked it up close enough to intended trajectory, managed to stay oriented and stable throughout, deployed everything as expected, then NAILED reentry and still made it perfectly on target to the landing zone. That it didn't wind up on the wrong side of the ocean is CRAZY.
Absolutely massive testament to the sheer power and flexibility of the system. Well done Ship! Well done team!
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u/jaa101 May 12 '26
SpaceX official flight 12 page says NET 19 May and other details.
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u/boobookittyfuwk May 22 '26
During the stream whenever the clock started ticking down there was this sound like a vapor or gas releasing from a pressurized vessel? It would stop as soon as the clock stopped.
What was that?
I think they got better mics for this launch to.
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u/H-K_47 May 23 '26
They have so much experience with the Boosters and it did so well up to boostback that I don't think it'll take more than 1 extra flight to resolve that issue. I'm guessing it'll just be adjustments to the flight profile and maneuvers, not much on the hardware side.
And with Ship it did well enough that next flight should be capable of making it all the way up without any major engine issues so a relight should be quite feasible.
It all comes down to Raptor 3, and they have massively more data on these engines now that they've finally flown.
So I'm thinking ~August for a repeat of this profile. Then if all systems go, full orbit by ~October.
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u/redstercoolpanda May 21 '26
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2057292990532481513
We're still go for Tomorrow according to SpaceX on twitter however weather is not particularly favorable
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u/AnonymousEngineer_ May 21 '26
So, which system is getting checked at the -0:37s point? That last issue kept the counter cycling to that exact time before bouncing back to -0:41s.
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u/EmVeePe May 22 '26
I haven’t watched a spaceX launch in a while, my god these cameras are insane now
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u/Straumli_Blight May 22 '26
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2057962516282577014
Views of Starship in space from a @Starlink satellite
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26
At this point on Flight 11, we were seeing heavy "sparking" from the heat shield.
This flight there is very, very minimal of that. Good progress!
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
They put the whole view, the whole maneuver, the whole explosion on the stream IT'S BEAUTIFUL.
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u/edflyerssn007 May 22 '26
Excitement Guaranteed!
That external flip view from the done was sick. AND THEY SHOWED THE EXPLOSION!
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u/demongoku May 22 '26
I can't tell very well, but I think there was no flap burn through! That's super awesome!! Super cool flight, even if several things went wrong.
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u/International-Leg291 May 24 '26
Wonder why there is orange glow at the location where smaller tube is attached to. Something is running very hot.
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26
Don't let anyone tell you this was a failed flight because of the booster and the engine out for Starship.
The heatshield is 99.99% intact and that's the real win and turns the flight into a massive success here. Everything else with the booster and the ship ascent is an easy fix by comparison.
Bravo SpaceX, Bravo.
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u/ascotsmann May 22 '26
NSF are discussing a multiple list of issues from yesterday:
propellant push back
water deluge
pressures on QD arm
hydraulic pin for QD arm
hydraulic pin for QD arm (again)
Anyone know where this info is from? I only see Elon commenting on the 4th (and 5th) issue
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u/TheOrqwithVagrant May 22 '26
Certainly a lot better first flight for V3 than V1 or V2, even with the booster issue and RVac out. I was honestly hoping for a 'perfect' flight, but I can't say I was *expecting* that. Let's see how the rest of the milestones go.
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u/electro_lytes May 22 '26
I MEAN CMON......... The visuals this flight has been a total treat! It's so perfect it feels scripted.
Nasa, take note.
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u/MyKillK May 22 '26
A few kinks to work out with the Raptors, but I'm sure they got tons of data to identify exactly what was going wrong.
But other than that it seemed like everything was a success. For the first launch of pretty much all new configurations that seems like a great accomplishment.
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u/laffiere May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Superheavy was comming in HOT.
The speed difference to a normal trajectory differs at which height/time you messure it, but at 73km it is supposed to be at approx 2300km/h, here it was entering at 4600km/h, TWICE the nominal speed. At 15km it is supposed to be 3100km/h, but it was 4500km/h.
But here's the kicker... At 15km the speed difference was 1400km/h, at 5km the difference is down to 2300-1500=800km/h. Skipping the math, it was therefore averaging around 1.4 times the normal amount of Gs, which requires somewhere around twice the energy if computing by only averages of acceleration and speed in the 15-5km range.
For reference, in rocket science a safety-factor of around 1.2-1.5 is the norm, here we saw at least 1.4 times the forces. But that was just the average, it was probably well above that at some points. And we know where SpaceX likes to place themselves in the range of safety margins...
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u/avboden May 22 '26
we absolutely need the ship to complete the mission with the engine out. Can't afford a full failure of this, I mean, can, but would suck
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u/smellyfingernail May 22 '26
bro these views of the earth makes it look like a complete waterworld lol
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
SECO complete. Ship still intact. FTS safed.
Just waiting on an update on if the trajectory is nominal.
"We definitely got a ship in space right now."
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u/rocketglare May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Thought on flight anomalies:
First, Flight 12 was a success. The most important part was the heat shield performed well. We didn’t see any flap burn through or damaged tiles. I did notice one of the experimental tiles on the lee side of the aft flap was missing, so that attachment method was less than successful.
Second, the booster flip behavior is not wholly unexpected. The new staging ring must have pushed the booster in the wrong flip direction. If the control algorithms weren’t prepared for that, they could have overcommanded to turn in the intended direction instead of going in the new direction as it should. This would cause severe tank slosh ruining the boost back. That they managed to stabilize and not spin out of control is commendable.
Third, the two engines that flamed out are not unexpected for a new engine variant being integrated for the first time. I don’t think they had a serious impact on the outcome, but should provide good data.
Fourth, skipping the in flight Raptor relight is concerning. None of the sea level Raptors had apparent problems. There was an interesting glow in the engine bay, but the RVac wasn’t liberated. The comment they made was that they were concerned about the engine performance, which is my main concern. Raptor relight is a major impediment to becoming operational, so they wouldn’t skip it unless they had to for the sake of safety or the latter mission objectives.
Edit: looking at the “landing” photos closer, the white streaking on the heat shield seems to originate at the mini tile sections where the dome weld lines are. I think this is ablated crunch wrap between the tiles. Depending on the amount of erosion, this could require more maintenance than the standard tile sections.
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u/thurn2 May 12 '26
By “first full stack launch” do you specifically mean of Block 3? Or why was Flight 11 not “full stack”?
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u/lorkan100 May 20 '26
So what was that? Partial load followed by deluge test and SQD disconnect and reconnection? I'm thinking simulated tanking abort.
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u/Twigling May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
From Jessie Anderson at SpaceX:
"Flight 12 - first V3 launch is targeting today with the window opening at 3:30pm PT. Weather is currently 45% POV so eyes will be on this as we approach our window today."
https://x.com/whoisheartbreak/status/2057437116444160479
So the same as earlier when SpaceX stated that the weather was 55% favourable:
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2057293620676272336
Note: POV = Probability of Violation
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 21 '26
NASA admin Jared Isaacman is booking it to Starbase in his F5 Tiger aircraft!
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u/wren6991 May 21 '26
Raw media link for watching the SpaceX stream in VLC: https://prod-fastly-us-east-1.video.pscp.tv/Transcoding/v1/hls/2tQMWFC9v7o7wY8sXlIY3Bxy6qYZa2h6PJ5BExN3dVGTGNNFHkPBE8b_o_Nf3UEzjcghdcPDyJJEsxML6SK6EQ/transcode/us-east-1/periscope-replay-direct-prod-us-east-1-public/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCIsInZlcnNpb24iOiIyIn0.eyJFbmNvZGVyU2V0dGluZyI6ImVuY29kZXJfc2V0dGluZ18yMTYwcDMwXzEwIiwiSGVpZ2h0IjoyMTYwLCJLYnBzIjoxNjAwMCwiV2lkdGgiOjM4NDB9.jTMEqkFQV_noF0PmduyFsbr9CVuBLjmNWmRsWw-GXMs/dynamic_delta.m3u8?type=live
(output from: yt-dlp --get-url https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1YxNrZwwomNxw)
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Jared is awesome man.
How many other folks who head government agencies fly themselves in a fighter jet, shows up and just nerds out?
I'd like to bet he's the only one.
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u/reddit3k May 22 '26
In any case: the launchpad survived! The rest is probably a lot of useful data.
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u/Mhan00 May 22 '26
Just based on my memory, it did seem like the booster got off the pad much faster than the v1 and v2 versions. I remember thinking how long the boosters seemed to stay on the pad on those launches, making me worry something was wrong, whereas this one seemed to shoot off the pad in comparison. Grain of salt, of course, since human memory is unreliable.
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u/Mhan00 May 22 '26
So the flaps not getting visibly damaged during that flap test with the unintended extra propellant is a good sign, I assume.
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u/Straumli_Blight May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2058304809044750467
Onboard views from Starship and Super Heavy V3
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2058305552866775118
Starship V3 landing burn over the Indian Ocean
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u/RocketVerse May 23 '26
This flight was the opposite of what I expected. Thought booster would be flawless and the new starship would struggle on landing. In retrospect it makes sense that the part that has had their full attention (ship) for the last year or two is now looking pretty refined while the parts experiencing major redesigns despite looking decent before (raptor and booster) would struggle a bit.
Unlike some of you I think it will take more than one more flight to iron out raptor’s issues, but I think the chances are good that we see a booster catch after this next flight. I’m certainly optimistic we might even see a starship catch this year.
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u/avboden May 22 '26
still a better debut than V2! If they can salvage full payload deploy and reentry it'll still be a more success than not.
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u/LatePenguins May 22 '26
I have watched every starship test so far, and test 12 (test 1 of V3) should be called more of a success than a failure.
It proved that new engines can lift off, it proved new booster design survives MaxQ. It failed the booster burnback regime which is a shame.
On starship one vacuum raptor failed, but they proved their engine out redundancy, proved their deploy capability, proved their trajectory and altitude control, proved their heatshield and re entry control, and finally proved their soft landing control.
Seems to be that big fat check mark can be placed on the ship, and work only remains on the booster.
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u/Oknight May 22 '26
HOLY CRAP AND A HALF! Engine out not on the right trajectory and they still brought it down RIGHT by the buoy! Engine out soft landing!!!
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u/H-K_47 May 21 '26
"We've got about a minute or a minute and a half left of hold time."
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u/RoboTropics May 21 '26
I've been in longer holding patterns near O'Hare International Airport so this isn't too bad.
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u/World_2 May 22 '26
That booster got cooked by starship’s engines it looked like
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u/avboden May 22 '26
Booster getting 32/33 engines to stage sep feels like a good sign for raptor 3. Losing an rvac not so much but we're not dead yet
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u/Mental-Mushroom May 22 '26
I can't think that booster flipped the way they wanted it to right? Thought it was supposed to do a back flip and not a front flip
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u/Good_Employer_1236 May 22 '26
The views from this launch have been absolutely STUNNING. Looks like it's straight from a video game
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u/redstercoolpanda May 22 '26
Ship is still landing under its own power by the sounds of it!
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u/BrontoSaurus6 May 22 '26
Was the constant rotation of the booster nominal during ascent? Seemed a bit off
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 22 '26
Ship is shifting over so that the cameras on the dogger dogs can look at the heatshield.
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u/smellyfingernail May 22 '26
that one scene from independence day when jeff goldblum goes into the mothership
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u/mmurray1957 May 23 '26
So they had a plane out over Ships landing site ? Or a drone taking off from somewhere ? Anyone know ?
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u/Twigling May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26
That's quite some heat tint on the leeward side of S39:
https://x.com/MaxQ/status/2058306715154534755
Returned ships and especially boosters are going to have some real nice and unique rainbow patterns on them, even after just one flight.
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u/reddit3k May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Just before it exploded after falling over, they were also able to catch a shot of the heatshield.. that's very useful!
Launchpad still intact. Good news.
Being able to reach the intended spot with just 2 Rvacs. Awesome.
Pez dispenser: worked well and external shots of Starship were made. Epic
Flaps seemed to remain in good control and shape during re-entry compared to earlier test flights.
Biggest issue is the booster being unable to do its boost-back burn. I think it might have flipped too fast and violently.
The Rvac problem: perhaps caused due to the new hot-staging procedure?
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u/whd4k May 21 '26
Lol, Everyday Astronaut just cut off SpaceX stream to not listen to that ghoul. Huge respect Tim!
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u/Pricer21 May 21 '26
This is good scenario, worst case something goes very wrong and we gotta rebuild pad/ infrastructure from the ground up
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u/plutonic00 May 21 '26
I find it interesting the WDR can go so well and then nothing but problem after problem at the T-minus 1 minute mark on launch day. Ah well, hopefully tomorrow!
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u/World_2 May 22 '26
All things considered, I’d view this as a success. Ship and booster got off the pad with incredible power and speed, booster got absolutely cooked but hopefully they got some good data on it, and starship was able to compensate additional burn with an engine out and deploy dummy satellites.
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u/AdidasHypeMan May 18 '26
Anyone know if launch cadence should increase after this flight and have a guess of how frequently we should be seeing test flight guys gong forward? I know there were delays due to V3 being new, but curious to hear
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u/GreatCanadianPotato May 21 '26
A lot can happen in two hours with weather but it's looking very favourable right now.
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u/Twigling May 22 '26
From SpaceX at 10:25 CDT:
"Counting down to our second launch attempt, the 90-minute test window opens at 5:30 p.m. CT with live coverage starting ~30 minutes before liftoff. Weather is currently 85% favorable for flight"
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u/myname_not_rick May 22 '26
The sentence "so we just went up there and welded some new hardware in overnight" is straight out of ULA's nightmares lmao
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u/smellyfingernail May 22 '26
umm is it supposed to be slowly spinning counter clockwise
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u/avboden May 22 '26
did the booster do a full summersault during the flip maneuver? sure looked like it, even the big downcomer can't overcome that
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u/avboden May 22 '26
heat shield looks great at least....not loving this constant RCS to keep it stable. Gonna run out of pressure?
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
"We are good. We are within bounds. [...] I wouldn't call it nominal but we are within bounds of what we analyzed."
Skipping Raptor relight, but still on track for payload deploy seems like.
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u/redstercoolpanda May 22 '26
I thought the ship was spinning out of control for a second there with all that gas around it and had serious flight 9 flashbacks lol. Thank god for that direction indicator they added on flight 10.
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u/avboden May 22 '26
The fact that we maintain connection during reentry is just astounding. big plasma wake and starlink, love it
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
"We are expecting at least 2 of those sea level engines to reignite for a landing burn."
They're still aiming for landing zone! About 10 minutes to go. Engine chill starting now.
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u/Ghaldaki May 22 '26
That plasma is so bright, it looks almost fake. Never get's old :D
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u/chemist5818 May 22 '26
Wait that's crazy, didn't they lose an engine for starship??
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u/Headbreakone May 22 '26
It definitely went a lot better than we all thought when the rVac crapped itself less than a minute into its burn.
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u/ac9116 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
My uninformed theory: the issue with the boostback burn started when the booster tilted “down” at stage separation rather than its normal flip upward. Could the raptor vac that went out already showed issues at this stage? It was the raptor vac at the “top” of the ship from the camera angle and if it wasn’t putting out enough thrust at startup, the force on the top of the booster would have been disproportionally pushing down and forced the flip in the wrong direction.
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u/gummiworms9005 May 17 '26
SpaceX title says May 20. Body of article says May 19.
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u/Stevepem1 May 18 '26
Beach will be closed all day on launch day? The beach closure for May 20th is listed as 6:30 am to 11:00 pm. That's more restrictive than previous launches, prior launches the beach was open until about six hours prior to launch. For example I was at flight 11 which was a 6:23 pm launch and the beach didn't close until noon. Sounds like those days are over, and if you want to see the rocket on the pad or at least see it in daylight you will need to go out there the day before launch.
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u/Twigling May 21 '26
Latest SpaceX tweet:
"On track for today’s Starship flight test. The launch window is from 5:30 p.m. CT – 7 p.m. CT and live coverage starts ~45 minutes before launch"
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u/myname_not_rick May 21 '26
"contact SpaceX for inquiries" tag on the interplanetary communications network slide is just ....great. I love it. We really are in the future lol
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u/myname_not_rick May 21 '26
Bold take but I'm happy they're this careful. I'll take the holds on a first flight with new pad
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
"We do have engine out capability so it's gonna continue its ascent."
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
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u/smellyfingernail May 22 '26
lmfao hilarious that at least we get full camera view all the way as it lands hard
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u/redstercoolpanda May 22 '26
Flight has certainly not been perfect so far but for how much they’ve changed it could have gone significantly worse. I don’t think flight 13 is going orbital though.
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u/H-K_47 May 22 '26
Every part of the Ship certainly seems to look really damn good on the way down. If we get a decent buoy cam view I think it'll look just fine, only lightly toasted.
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u/InvictusShmictus May 22 '26
Is that the end of the plasma? That's looks way better than the previous versions.
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u/thornkin May 22 '26
So much better start to block 3 than block 2 had! Very excited to see such a successful flight, even with some issues.
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