The combination of starship spacecraft and "super-heavy" booster rocket conducted its fourth successful test flight on Thursday night;
Although not 100% perfect, the wings of the starship spaceship were damaged, but both the spaceship and the rocket achieved controlled splashdown.
On the evening of Thursday Beijing time, Starship, carrying Musk's "Mars Dream", carried out the fourth full-system test flight. Based on the first three test flights, the "Starship" spacecraft successfully returned to Earth after ascending to Earth orbit, and the "super-heavy" rocket also successfully achieved controllable soft landing.
From the results, compared with the smooth completion of the predefined actions of the "super-heavy" rocket, although the wing of the starship spacecraft seemed unable to withstand the high temperature of the atmosphere in the final stage, it did not affect the spacecraft's operation of landing, flipping, and ignition, and finally successfully splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
Musk also celebrated by saying that despite losing many heat shield tiles and damaging a wing, the Starship still successfully achieved a soft landing in the ocean! Congratulations to the SpaceX team for achieving a great accomplishment!!
(Source: X)
Of course, after completing the Earth orbit insertion and return test, the Starship will still launch more targets: ensuring the reusability of the Starship spacecraft, "super-heavy" rocket, and launching an attack on the moon -- and sending astronauts to the moon, and so on.
-------Full Review-------
20:50 Beijing time: Starship combination ignition takeoff.
20:51 Beijing time: The rocket reached the maximum aerodynamic pressure.
20:52 Beijing time: Starship spacecraft and "super-heavy" rocket successfully implemented thermal separation, and at the same time, the "super-heavy" rocket carried out a flip maneuver and retrograde ignition.
20:54 Beijing time: Thermal separation ring ejection.
20:57 Beijing time: The "super-heavy" rocket successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, and SpaceX employees cheered.
20:58 Beijing time: The Starship spacecraft engine successfully shut down.
Around 21:00 Beijing time: The Starship spacecraft is flying in Earth orbit, and there is no video signal at this stage. The instrument display shows that the spacecraft is in normal condition.
21:28 Beijing time: Signal recovery, Starship spacecraft is flying smoothly, and will return to the atmosphere in about 10 minutes, which will be the most critical step of this test flight.
21:37 Beijing time: The Starship spacecraft began to return to the atmosphere, and the body could be seen turning red due to friction with the atmosphere.
21:38 Beijing time: Start to pass through the atmosphere, and have reached the area with the highest theoretical temperature. During the whole process, the spacecraft decelerates entirely by friction with the atmosphere.
21:43 Beijing time: It is worth mentioning that human beings can see the live broadcast from the atmosphere, thanks to the thousands of Starlink satellites floating above the orbit.
21:45 Beijing time: The thermal shield of the spacecraft is undergoing the "baking" test of the atmosphere, and the current situation is good.
21:48 Beijing time: At present, the spacecraft has reached the thickest part of the atmosphere, and it seems that the wing of the spacecraft is beginning to support it.
21:51 Beijing time: Although the spacecraft looks a little weak, the video signal is still continuing.
At 21:54 Beijing time, the spacecraft landed at subsonic speed, and it seems possible to see the Indian Ocean from the camera.
At 21:55 Beijing time, the spacecraft successfully executed landing ignition and flip, and successfully splashed down in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX employees are celebrating wildly!
At 21:57 Beijing time, SpaceX confirmed in a post that the Starship spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
Appendix: Starship's fourth test flight time/event table.
