Starship Flight 5 Flies Successfully!

This article was written by logan_sx27, Magnum and OneMarsyboi

Flight 5 ready for launch. Credit: SpaceX

The highly anticipated 5th flight of Starship successfully lifted off at 7:25 am CDT from Pad A at Starbase, Texas.

Super Heavy Ascent

Flight 5 launching. Credit: SpaceX

Super Heavy ignited all engines at T-3 seconds and beautifully cleared the launch pad by T+2s in the incredible post-dawn light. Super Heavy continued its ascent and powered through Max-Q at T+1m2s: Max-Q is the moment of peak mechanical stress on the vehicle. As the vehicle went up in the atmosphere, beautiful blue plumes were seen from the Raptor engines; then, at T+2m37s, Super Heavy reached MECO (Most Engines Cut Off): at this point, Super Heavy shut down 30/33 engines, leaving just the middle 3 Raptors ignited at a reduced throttle. Approximately 5s later, the Starship 2nd stage vehicle ignited its 6 Raptor engines while still attached to Super Heavy. The hot exhaust escaped through the vented inter-stage, known as the Hot Stage Ring (HSR). This incredibly risky maneuver is called Hot-Staging, hence the name for the vented inter-stage. Just as the 2nd stage Raptors ignited, the three hold clamps connecting the HSR to the 2nd stage released, and the 2nd stage began its journey to space.

Super Heavy Descent

Super heavy flight 5 descending. Credit: SpaceX

Super Heavy began its flip maneuver, which was helped by the Hot Staging exhaust. Just prior to ship ignition, Super Heavy rotates its grid fins to allow the 2nd stage exhaust to pass through it, giving it an extra boost at the start of the flip maneuver. 4s after Hot Staging, Super Heavy ignited the 13 middle Raptor engines and initiated the boost-back burn. This burn lasted 55s and put Super Heavy on a path back to the launch site. Super Heavy then jettisoned the HSR 2s after boost-back burn shutdown, leaving the HSR to crash into the ocean. Super Heavy then reached an apogee of just 96 km and continued to follow its intended trajectory.

Finally, at T+3m55s, Super Heavy committed to a return to launch site landing with a GO from the Launch Director. Super Heavy continued to descend with an excited crowd both in the background and watching as the heat from the reentry was clearly visible on the bottom of the Raptor engines. Then, at 1 km of height, 1209 km/h and T+6m31s, Booster 12 ignited all 13 engines with no problem; it then switched to 3 engines at T+6m37s and neared the launch tower: chopsticks began closing as soon as the bottom of the Booster passed below them, and then it redirected itself and was caught on the chopsticks at T+6m57s with the load pins that made contact with the landing rails! A small fire formed at the bottom of the Booster but was put out naturally. A few minutes later a chine seemed to have been partially damaged during the flight. Apart from that, no major damages were observed and Booster 12 began the safing procedures. An exciting first for the Starship program!

Flight 5 super heavy landing. Credit: SpaceX

Second Stage Ascent

Starship flight 5 ascent. Credit: SpaceX

From now on, we will refer to the second stage as "Starship".

Starship successfully continued its ascent until T+8m28s, with the 6 Raptor engines firing nominally. We got some nice views from the on-board cameras as Starship climbed towards space. Besides the nice views, all eyes were on the Super Heavy catch, but the Ship was going up.

Starship Coast and Re-entry

Starship flight 5 coasting. Credit: SpaceX

At T+07:59, Starship cut off its 3 RVac engines, followed shortly later at T+08:28 by the sea level engines. That marked the beginning of Starships coast phase around the Earth: in this and previous flights, Starship shuts down its engines just prior to reaching orbital velocity; this ensures safe reentry even in the case a problem were to occur. Starship shut down its engines at 26,500 km/h (7.3 km/s) whereas orbital velocity is 28,080 km/h (7.8 km/s). The coast phase went smoothly with fantastic views from many of the cameras of Starship, both of the Earth and of Starship itself, taken from many cameras, including a new flap camera.

This particular Starship is the first to have received significant upgrades of the heat shield, featuring a completely new design that involves new tiles "2x stronger" than the previous ones, above a secondary ablative layer, which serves as a last resort to prevent a burn-through in the case one tile were to fail. At around T+45:30 heat and plasma began forming around Starship, and the views just kept getting better until the entire Starship was engulfed in plasma. For those that seemed endless minutes, Starship continued to battle the extreme heat of reentry until the maximum point of heating was reached at 71-58 km. At that point the plasma was still strong but began to fade as Starship descended through the thicker part of the atmosphere; it reached Max-Q at 43 km while it was unfortunately receiving damages: at least 2 of the flaps burned through, though not as bad as last time, and most of the Ship started glowing, with a few burn-through points as it seemed. As the Ship approached lower supersonic speeds, it started using its flaps to move and redirect itself towards the intended splashdown location.

Starship re-entering. Credit: SpaceX

Then the final moment came. Starship was just a few km from the surface of the Indian Ocean, and it continued to descend using its flaps to steer itself towards the splashdown site. Then it went under 1 km, and at that point the 3 center sea level engines ignited at T+1h5m25s, allowing the ship to make the flip maneuver: Starship did it, going vertical and decelerating until it splashed down in the Indian Ocean with awesome onboard views of the ship landing on the surface of the water with a fire starting at the bottom; and we can confirm, its accurate landing location thanks to a buoy that gave us the view of Ship 30 blowing up at T+1h5m55s, leaving views of its firing remnants on the water. This concluded Flight 5, an awesome flight for SpaceX with the first successful catch of a Booster, paving the way for the Starship program!

Flight 5 Starship water touchdown. Credit: SpaceX

Starship Flight 5 blowing up. Credit: SpaceX