SpaceX Starship Launch 3 (IFT3) Explained!
well my friends this week we witnessed the most amazing scenes ever for the Starship program or dare I say any live rocket launch to date yes indeed Starship flight test 3 took off right as planned and my goodness the entire mission was absolutely spectacular with Incredible successes and some new challenges to work through for the next test flight okay now we can see you coming down the ladder now this video is sponsored by surf shark VPN hey hey Marcus Housey here and last week we left you with the FTS of the flight termination system explosives
being moved out to the Launchpad for being installed on both vehicles these if you are unfamiliar allow SpaceX to terminate and destroy the vehicles in Flight if something goes wrong after many careful hours of work the explosives were set and the Hope was that we would not be seeing the use of those at all for the upcoming flight ship 28 needed a little final attention on the ground with workers removing those locking plates on the payload door I suspect that they’ve added these to ensure that the doors stay secure and won’t tilt inwards when the
mechanisms inside are unpowered when that door is ready to be used in space that inward tilt is the first step of opening the payload by door with that ship now flight ready
the dance started to position ship 28 perfectly so that it was aligned onto booster 10 now that was still not quite as smooth as we’ve seen in the past because just like the last stacking they had to fine-tune that for a while which you can see best if you look at the ship’s Raptor engine chill pop alignment likewise with one of the clamps located right below the after flap there now eventually it was nicely aligned and locked in place with the transport stand being moved away we were finally seeing pictures from SpaceX sharing the final
stack right after indeed the excitement must have been building right up for SpaceX as they started blasting music through the PA system right as the water delu system activated beautiful daylight footage of that test there and that was done even before the ship quick disconnect had even been attached to the ship now some final small tests such as this quick retraction test were done and the next day some more tests of the grid fins and the igniter tests as well now there was of course still a little cleanup work to be done here the last
scaffolding from the orbital launch Mount needed to be removed and there we were early in the week awaiting the day of testing which up until that point had been hinted for Thursday the 14th however before that we still had this Beast nearby ship 29 in the middle of its testing run yes that was still at the launch site too but they wouldn’t keep it there during an orbital flight test though right well SpaceX still had some time up their sleeve and once again they kicked into this next big test the road closed propellant was slowly
loaded into the ship the engine chill started up and Bam that looked like a successful spin Prime test to me now those tests may not seem incredibly exciting but with those they essentially do every step up until they would normally ignite the propellant based on what we are seeing here we think that perhaps all six engines were tested there but no official confirmation on that thankfully with that done that was the end of its testing campaign for now the flaps were closed up and it was lifted off the pad with the twoo lifting attachments on
the crane that there has a stand of its own by the way and it was placed down gently onto that before we knew it both ship 29 together with the two-point lifter both made their way back to the bill sight Now by Wednesday afternoon of course the launch date and the time became officially official with a launch license from the FAA granted that was right after SpaceX published this new Incredible compilation of Starship awesomeness as we began the countdown of the roughly 15 hours or so remaining on the clock before the flight yes my friends
the day was finally upon us we had a 70% chance based on the weather as we counted down the last hour of the count with all of the fog on the site we were just hoping to get some great views several slight delays due to boats being in the way again but thanks thankfully soon enough propellant load did kick off and when spacex’s live stream popped up we were in the final load process amazing scense as the count gradually decreased and what seemed to be in the blink of an eye both the booster and the
ship were loaded with propellants we screamed all the way through the countdown without any holds as Mission Control called out that Starship was go for launch the detonation suppression system turned on the water Deluge system blasted from the base of the pad and lifted off yes Starship was once again ascending through the Texas sky with all 33 Raptor engines firing perfectly just like Fly 2 we heard that avionic power and Telemetry were all normal and then check this out we were on board baby which was terrific to see after flight 2’s missing camera feeds not
only from the booster but also the ship this one here is a camera mounted on the forward flap looking down at the exhaust plume Max Q was called out on the Nets as the plume began to expand and we were once again treated to some crazy tracking shots from the ground I really loved this particular shot with the ascent plume down below even casting a shadow on the clouds underneath this was crazy to see but perhaps even more crazy was what was about to come hot staging when that maneuver took place in the last flight
we only saw it from ground camera so as all but three of the Raptor engines on the booster shut down I was almost turning blue hoping that they would not lose connection to this camera view and sure enough wow was that a picture perfect stage separation against a picture perfect background all six of the ship’s engines were running as expected and once again we saw that exhaust interaction on the booster’s grid fins to help rotate it away to the side that certainly looks like more evidence that indeed the grid fins of the booster actuate around
to help with that flip this was amazing absolutely amazing the Boost back burn continued as planned this time with all 13 engines powering booster 10 back closer towards the offshore Splashdown location the idea here was to try and have this targeted splash down in the ocean to see how the design actually works just take a look at how fast that speed was being cancelled out also look at that altitude it had actually gone above the 100 km Carman line but not for long now interestingly as those engines shut down they didn’t seem to do so
very symmetrically that may actually be by Design to give it a bit of a spin to reorient it for its entry perhaps but yeah that’s assuming that it was shut down as planned the booster over the coast phase had oriented back to its upright position and then it screamed back down through the upper parts of the atmosphere the grid fins swung into action as the booster passed through the 50 km Mark at three times the speed of sound just look at that view coming down through the cloud lights that is just breathtaking this was of
course where things went a little Haywire the booster began to spin quite violently so something must have gone wrong there with the grid fin controls I suspect The Landing burn kicked off with Just 2 km to go at Mark 1 but if we look closely and slow this down you can actually see that the engine certainly didn’t fire up as expected three of them came on but only one Central Engine with two on the outside before one immediately shut down followed by the other yes that part there certainly didn’t go to plan so SpaceX will
be collecting and diagnosing that part of the flight for sure this event reminds me a little of the crs1 16 launch with Falcon 9 actually in that flight the grid fin locked in the wrong orientation so yeah quite similar now SpaceX later confirmed on their website that what we just saw wasn’t the booster exploding as it hit the water it was actually a rapid unscheduled disassembly at 462 m above sea level now the explosion wasn’t related to the flight termination system either because we heard that it had been saved shortly before The Landing burn so
I’m really interested to find out what the real reason was for the actual explosion with the booster gone the party was definitely not over ship 28 was still firing all six engines on its way to orbit and the views in the leadup to the engine cut off were just magic here was the moment that we had all been waiting years for though the onboard views were offline at the time but the engine interface showed that those larger vacuum engines had cut off which was followed about 15 seconds later by the sea level engines a huge
Outburst of gases the feed was still continuing and yes my friends the largest vehicle to ever be placed into orbit or very near orbital velocity successfully was done remember they intentionally cut the engines just a few seconds shy of full orbit in order to safely re-enter regardless of the next tests that they needed to do in space now this was an enormous Milestone and a victory for SpaceX and that has proven that at a minimum we have the capability to send a monstrous payload to space in a single launch even if it is in an
Expendable configuration that is a big win alone but SpaceX won’t stop here they are going for full reusability but how many more Milestones could they tick off for flight test 3 one of the goals for this flight was to test out the payload bay door a slot in the side of the vehicle that will open one day to deploy styling satellites and then close back up for re-entry well over the Nets it was confirmed that this Pez dispenser door was beginning to open and we were treated to some incredible internal views here I really loved
this shot here that seemed to show the residual pressure in the payload Bay Area escaping there into the vacuum of space after some time it began to close back up and then something did seem to go wrong right at the end of that closing operation we’re still waiting on some more information on this but it seemed like the door got stuck and then was suddenly let go again SpaceX have since said on their website update later that it was successfully closed so perhaps they had another attempt at that off camera so what about the next
Milestone which was the propellent transfer demonstration well during the stream we heard that the flight computers were entering procedures for the start of this operation as well as indications for the end of that test Gwen Shotwell sent a post saying that the transfer demonstration was yet to be confirmed but shortly after the mission had ended there was confirmation that this had indeed been performed successfully so yeah another success there throughout the entire Coast phase ship 28 was spinning at a pretty steady rate to me though I wouldn’t have expected a spin quite that fast so
perhaps there was some control issues at this point but totally speculative now there was still the final inspace Raptor reflight demonstration to go in the mission plan but SpaceX actually skipped right over that yet again SpaceX posted more information on this later saying that Starship did not attempt its planned on orbit reflight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during the coast now I’m assuming that they’ve had some issues with some of the reaction control systems on one wondering if some of the Roll thrusters on the side of the ship may have
Frozen up at some point while cruising in the cold vacuum of space anyway without that engine burn demo the default splash down location would still have been over the Indian Ocean so all of that was fine after a patient wait for the final spectacle we were soon entering the business end of the coast phase to see if there was any chance at all that this could enter the atmosphere in a controlled way remember this view is looking downward from the forward flap meaning that when the flap actually to prepare for re-entry the camera moves with
it that was awesome but not as awesome as this take a look down there at the flap it was starting to Glow yes seconds later this is certainly one of the most incredible things that I have ever seen in space flight while streaming live from space on the third ever flight test we were witnessing hot plasma building up on ship 28 as it began to enter the atmosphere yes these glorious views were being broadcast by the starlink antennas on the nose cone through the network which loone I think is quite a testament to just how
reliable starlink Communications are now sadly the spinning from earlier looked to be continuing during the re-entry and if you look at this ship 28 at one point was tail first into the plasma certainly not the planned orientation but I was wondering if some slightly thicker atmosphere would allow the fins to get the roll under control the views of the re-entry attempt continued for quite some time actually and it is all amazing stuff go and replay all of this from the broadcast because this really is a fantastic thing to watch by the time the ship’s cameras
was starting to get obscured the live view suddenly cut off followed not long after with the Telemetry coming to a halt now this was expected anyway as communication blackouts are normal as the plasma interferes further with the signal trying to get beamed out however SpaceX had lost signal from both starlink and NASA’s tracking and data relay satellite system at the exact same time that was unfortunately a pretty good indication that the ship had been lost they they did still let the countdown go to see if there was any further sign of survival but SpaceX later
determined that ship 28 had indeed burned up in the atmosphere as the countdown passed the expected splash down time anyway I don’t know about you but I was absolutely speechless while watching this live and it’s going to take some time to fully digest it all I will say what an incredible day we had another flight there with 33 engines working beautifully successful hot staging a great boost back burn with all 13 inner engines running an exciting and unfortunate booster Landing attempt to work on in the next mission successful ship engine cuto off long Coast phase
two successful in space tests and an astounding view of atmospheric re-entry you know what else is exciting SpaceX are aiming for at least six more launches of Starship this year even if that ended up being half of that it would still be an incredibly exciting year the big question is is this six more launches like a 2 weeks kind of estimate or could we actually be seeing six launchers let me know know what you think so with all of that we have loads of great updates from the week as we prepare for flight 4 yes
there is no rest from this new cycle before diving into that though a huge thanks to Surf shark VPN sponsoring this video and making what we do possible you can think of a virtual private network service like a passport to an internet Without Borders if you’re anything like me you’re frequently getting blocked due to your location it’s like hitting a brick wall and news sites I find it getting worse at blogging content outside the the country surf sharks got your back though because you can simply make your device pretend that it is from a country
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to get three additional months for free or scan the QR code on screen now thank you surf shark okay so let’s check out the next Starship to fly with ship 29 now back at the build site what has been happening over here the booster 14 construction story continues in meabay 1 with another stacking of its liquid oxygen tank last week we had seen its after section being moved into the bay and this week we were treated with some nice views with the mega bay door lifted up yeah we could actually see the full lift with
that section containing loads of components such as the liquid oxygen header tank and the complex thrust parck for the inner 13 engines this really is the business end of the booster with that now assembled that is the full liquid oxygen tank for booster 14 done it took just under a month for that tank to be completed and the methane tank will start stacking soon too the top three sections were all lined up in front of the mega Bay with the one set to be installed right below the forward section already having gained the lead in
guides these are temporarily installed on the inside of the tank to help align the two sections perfectly ahead of being welded together down at the Sanchez area of the site the removal of the grid fins from booster 4 continued so it’s really looking like they’re going to get ready to scrap the full vehicle this time it looked like they did plan on removing all four of those ahead of the potential scrapping if you cast your mind back to the scrapping process of booster 5 they had taken one of those off but they then needed to
reinstall it due to them not being able to remove the other ones now interestingly with booster 4 this grid fin that had been stuck out at an angle for quite some time is the last remaining to be removed close by the STA Factory is getting bigger and bigger even encroaching into the view of lab Padre’s Rover One camera yes that tall area right next to the highway is massive and work on that continues steadily with more and more cladding going onto the sides they are also installing glass panels right at the bottom here which we
believe will run right up near the corner okay so let’s continue our Trek right down Highway 4 straight towards massis to say that this site has been very busy is a massive understatement and thanks to our friends with RGV aerial photography there is so much to explore here this we believe is the location for Starship static fires in the future and over the past few weeks you can see how rapidly everything has taken shape the main location where the ship will most likely rest on a stand looks to be right here and we can now
also see the actual flame trench foundations have evolved massively with quite a considerable part of the flame trench also being covered fully the rest there will most likely remain open as the exhaust will be expelled back and upwards over there but how would they guide all of that exhaust well something very similar to this flame deflector by relativity space actually a very similar water bucket is being built right here at Massie what we are seeing here is actually just half of it perhaps even less actually the other week of course Ryan Hansen had speculated almost
exactly this nice crystal bow there Ryan now there’s quite interesting colors marked on there we suspect that they will punch holes for water to spray from all those pipes so it would make sense that the central yellow area may require a more dense series of holes due to the spread of the six rptor engine layout so we just need to wait and see what the future holds there close by we can see the support structure for the PIP work is coming along nicely so yeah we’ve got that together with what we can only assume will
be the protection plates to be installed at the sides of the flame trench they will protect the concrete and safely guide the exhaust away from anything vital we then obviously also need some kind of stand to place the ship on during the static fire and this one right here looks like it could fit the bill right next to the exhaust trench we can see that there are three water tanks which have had a very well-deserved sand blasting and paint treatment we saw those rusted tanks arriving a few weeks back but they sure don’t look like
the 50-year-old tanks that they are anymore in fact we can already see the footings for the high press tanks right next to them they should provide the huge pressure needed to generate the required water flow into that flame bucket nearby actually the tank farm in general is absolutely racing along with more and more pip work being laid down for that pipe stands area even popping up and head towards the static fire location given that with this flame trench we have all of the violent exhaust happening underground they don’t need to have a big burm separating
the exhaust from the tank farm like they have done at the suborbital sites at the Gateway To Mars so this in my opinion is a massive Improvement that we’ve been hoping to see now for years these aerial pitches that maricio with RGV has organized for ages now are absolutely key to understanding how all of these sites are developed masses especially since it’s sits secluded right next to that River now they need all our help to continue to do that stuff so if you can help support them on patreon and of course by watching and subscribing
to them that is the one free thing that you can do to help with their content no different to supporting my work here with this little corner of the internet so thanks for checking that you are still subscribed right here too now let’s just quickly head to Florida’s launch complex 39a because there is also Starship news here yes indeed the Starship pad has something intriguing going on the six legs for the future orbital launch Mount have begun to be dismantled this process started this week with the removal of the triangle shaped pieces from the top
of the legs and that continued this week with them taking a sizable chunk of some of the legs themselves it has also been a huge week for Falcon 9 with a barrage of starlink launchers this week here early in the week we had a double header with Falcon 9s on opposite sides of the country both standing there to attention from the West Coast on the left the group 717 Mission with booster 1063 flying for its 17th Mission from vandenbberg space Force Base the current record is still 19 flights but this one isn’t far from that
on the right from the East Coast at Cape canaval Mission 643 with booster 1077 flying for its 11th time both of these missions flew within just 5 hours of each other the mission from Cape canaro launched earlier in the day though and that led to some absolutely beautiful shots the push towards space past Max Q is always one of my my favorite parts of a flight especially with the weather and the lighting conditions like this when you can see the cloud layer there from the side main engine cut off and Stage separation for both missions
there both boosters came down right on Target on the two drone ships and with these two missions alone that adds another 4 terabits per second of capability to the network we’ve got some really cool updates from Sierra Space 2 surprise the next Dreamchaser named reverence is currently being produced along with its companion shooting star C module this will be the second Dreamchaser space plane for the new but growing Fleet that’s exciting alone but along with that the first tenacity vehicle has continued making big strides towards the first ever flight to space for the Dreamchaser overall
that should be still happening later this year on the Vulcan centur and at NASA’s Armstrong test facility in Ohio Sierra space has now completed the first phase of Environmental Testing which involves a lot of great shake and shock tests along each axis of the vehicle this is all being done of course to simulate flight conditions and they pick up this great high-speed camera footage to ensure that nothing is knocking into other areas such as the Deployable Wings which they have also done more deployment tests with as well all very good progress there and this is
going to be one of the more exciting missions to watch in 20124 so I can’t wait for that all right so exciting times for Rocket lab wait one sec yes exciting times for Rocket lab as we head all the way back down to New Zealand it’s hard there to make out the picturesque location in the middle of the night but this just means that all the eyes were glued to the rocket itself we had electron ready to launch for the 44th Mission suitably named Al night long this was the fourth in a series of stricks
satellite launches for inspective a Japanese company that builds and operates synthetic aperture radar satellites electron Roar off the pad into the darkness with a nice shot of the plume expanding there and in moments we had stage separ a taking the payload to its designated orbit with the help of the kick stage and there it was the fourth strict satellite deployed Now Rocket lab has been putting out all sorts of cool stuff lately Peter Beck the CEO announced a few weeks ago that they are rolling out this entire lineup of spacecraft buses they’ve actually been cooking
up these custom designs for years they’ve got something designed for so many different types of mission and yeah the thing is they’ve always come under this vehicle umbrella title of photon which perhaps didn’t make that much sense anymore now they’ve broken these up to better represent whatever the space mission is on the table lightening is built to last over 12 years in low earth orbit this packs a lot of power and it’s designed to keep working even when the space weather gets rough it is perfect for jobs that need a lot of juice like telecommunications
and remote sensing Pioneer is all about flexibility and this can carry payloads up to 120 kg Explorer is the deep space ADV Adventurer of the bunch and it is created to take on missions to Mars Venus the moon or wherever else it needs to go this one in particular as an example was instrumental in sending the Capstone mission to the moon for NASA now that mission ended up being a failure for various reasons but rocket lab did all their part perfectly showing that they’ve got what it takes for the Long Haul now as Rocket lab
gears up for more and more missions they’ve set up this massive complex in Long Beach all dedicated to pumping out these spacecraft for whoever needs them so finally to top another crazy week off space one a small Japanese solid fueled rocket was ready to lift off midweek for its first ever flight after an abort just days earlier they were coming back for the final countdown and it was off sadly though it was only off for about 5 seconds before it violently blew up leaving explosive fiery debris to rain back down around the launch site yikes
this rocket has four stages and it would have been the first time that a company would have put a satellite into orbit well if it had gone to plan not quite the spectacle that they had hoped for there but best of luck for their next flight so I hope you enjoyed this video if you did don’t forget to hit subscribe so we get to keep making them if you want to continue with more space goodness the algorithm thinks that you will enjoy this video here next or maybe these videos thanks for watching all this way
through and I’ll see you all in the next video
