Starship Flight 5 - A quick overview

Super Heavy returning to launch pad. Credit: SpaceX

The launch

The importance of Flight 5 cannot be understated, the ability to catch a booster is certainly a feat. That is why flight 5 was so important, re-usability.

The one thing plaguing spaceflight is cost. Once this problem is solved, we will advance quickly.

Naming

Collectively, the rocket is called Starship Super Heavy.

Starship:

Ship 30. Credit: SpaceX

Super heavy:

Booster 12. Credit: SpaceX

Liftoff

Flight 5 lifting off. Credit: John Kraus

12:25 UTC Starship launched from Starbase, Boca Chica Texas.

At T-3 seconds Super Heavy ignited all 33 raptor engines. By T+3 seconds Starship Super Heavy was clear of the pad! Flight 5 was officially under way

Screaming into the atmosphere Starship was looking good with all 33 raptor engines lit

Flight 5 ascent. Credit: SpaceX

By T+1m2s Starship encountered MaxQ. This is the maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle. Starship throttles down its engines slightly when going through this.

T+2m50s and Starship was hot staging! Hot staging is when Starship lights its engines as Super Heavy is still accelerating. Its really quite efficient

Super Heavy and Starship hot staging. Credit: SpaceX

Booster catch

Arguably the most important part of the mission, catching a booster. As mentioned before reusability is the golden goose of rocketry and a booster catch is a major leap towards that goal.

Once Super Heavy had done its boost back burn (Where it cancels out its velocity and heads back to the launch pad) it was soon racing back.

Super Heavy returning to launch pad. Credit: SpaceX

In what felt like a dream, Super Heavy was doing 1200km/h at 2km when it put on its brakes and went for the catch attempt.

It did it. Most of us spaceflight fans lost our minds at this point

Super Heavy caught. Credit: SpaceX

A mere 10 minutes ago this was incomprehensible and now it was a reality. Humanity caught a rocket

I wrote my feelings in this article: 13/10/2024 - The day spaceflight changed forever

The rest of the mission

Now whilst all the craziness had been going on with Super Heavy, we couldn’t forget about Starship itself! Going a blistering 26,000km/h Starship was coasting in space above the Earth.

Starship coasting in space. Credit: SpaceX

Now its important to point out that orbital speed is around 29,000km/h so Starship was only 2-3 thousand km/h shy of this threshold. The reason they didn’t go fully orbital is because they haven’t demonstrated relighting the raptors engines yet in space so it would be irresponsible to put something into orbit if you didn’t think you could bring it back down.

Re-entry

After what felt like 1 minute Starship was already re-entering! And with that, came spectacular views. Normal rockets go into a “blackout” period where the plasma around it disrupt all communication. Starship is 9m wide in diameter meaning it can literally punch a hole through the plasma so it can communicate with Starlink thus letting us see its re-entry

Starship re-entering. Credit: SpaceX

On the last flight, flight 4, Starship had significant burn through on the flap. Somehow it managed to survive re-entry and land! All be it beaten up

Starship flight 4 flap burn through. Credit: SpaceX

So needless to say on this flight we were watching the flap like a hawk!

Starship flight 5 burn through. Credit: SpaceX

As you can see not bad! Still a bit of burn through but not enough to destroy the flap

And with that relatively calm re-entry we were ready for splashdown!

Splashdown

Starship was aiming to land in the Indian ocean and so it did! Since it was around 10pm local time it was pitch black so there wasn’t a lot visually we could see. But the telemetry told the tale! At 330km/h and 0km in altitude it flipped onto its tail and made a soft splashdown into the ocean!

Starship landing in the Indian ocean. Credit: SpaceX

Now that Starship had touched down into the ocean we thought the mission was over but SpaceX had a trick up their sleeve! They had placed a buoy in the expected area of landing for Starship. So when it landed it switched to this camera!

And wups! Starship had blown up.

The mission was concluded.

Thoughts

This was an incredibly historic mission due to the catching of Super Heavy. It marks a new era of spaceflight. But I am also incredibly happy with Starships re-entry as that was overlooked due to the catch attempt.

I share more of my thoughts in this article: 13/10/2024 - The day spaceflight changed forever

Catch you in the next one!