SpaceX has released a new blog post about Starship’s 14th flight today.
“During Starship’s ascent burn, a single Raptor vacuum engine shut down early. Starship still achieved its planned, passively safe suborbital trajectory by burning its remaining five engines for longer than planned to compensate for the loss of thrust.
After entering its suborbital trajectory, the flight control team assessed Starship’s systems and determined the three sea-level Raptors engines needed for subsequent burns were healthy and gave a “go” for orbital operations. Starship then reignited a single Raptor sea-level engine to perform an orbit insertion burn and entered into orbit around Earth for the first time.
After a brief coast, Starship then deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Contact was made soon after with every satellite over laser links, ground stations, and Starlink user terminals. The satellites will now conduct on-orbit checkouts and raise their orbits before they begin serving customers.
Following payload deploy, Starship entered into a coast phase around Earth. Out of an abundance of caution given the engine issue experienced during ascent, the flight control team decided to limit the duration spent on orbit and proceeded with deorbiting Starship to a splashdown location in the northern Pacific Ocean. This area was one of two pre-coordinated landing zones identified before launch that was cleared of sea and air traffic.
Starship then relit a single Raptor sea-level engine and performed its first ever deorbit burn. That maneuver successfully brought the vehicle out of orbit and sent Starship through atmospheric reentry and descent to the intended splashdown point.
The first orbital Starship flight concluded with the vehicle relighting all three Raptor sea-level engines in a landing burn and flip maneuver before splashing down on target in the Pacific Ocean.”
Link to blog:
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