SpaceX’s Starship V3 lands in Indian Ocean on 2 engines.
It fell over and exploded as expected to massive cheers from SpaceX’s employees. Our wrap up of today’s launch will be posted shortly.
SpaceX never intended to land and recover the Ship 39 upper stage. It did appear to survive reentry with no evidence of heat shield burnthrough as seen on some recent test flights.
It executed a landing bank and flip maneuver, as well as a landing burn with just two of its three engines working.
SpaceX successfully conducted the 12th test flight of its massive Starship rocket system, marking the debut of the upgraded “Starship V3” configuration. The launch took place from Starbase, Texas, after an earlier countdown attempt was delayed due to technical issues.
During the mission, the Super Heavy booster separated from the upper-stage spacecraft and performed a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship upper stage continued its flight path, deploying more than 20 mock Starlink satellites while testing upgraded Raptor engines, heat shield systems, and reentry capabilities.
Although one engine experienced problems during flight, the mission achieved most of its planned objectives. The spacecraft later reentered Earth’s atmosphere and completed a dramatic splashdown in the Indian Ocean, ending in a fiery but controlled descent.
Flight 12 is considered a major milestone for SpaceX as the company continues developing Starship for future Moon missions under NASA’s Artemis program and eventual human missions to Mars.