Blastoff! SpaceX launches Starship on 11th flight test, booster splashes down
Video from the channel VideoFromSpace about Starship, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 10:51. Language: English. Video type: Launch.
The mission
The video covers the first ten minutes of SpaceX's broadcast of Starship's eleventh test flight from Starbase, with commentary from the team. The spacecraft's trajectory was deliberately suborbital: after shutting down its engines it was to come down in the Indian Ocean regardless.
Sequence
Super Heavy lifts off with all 33 Raptor engines firing and passes through Max Q. At hot-staging, the booster leaves only its three central engines running while the ship ignites its six Raptors. The booster performs the boostback burn with 12 of the planned 13 engines and jettisons the hot-staging adapter, which also falls into the gulf. During descent it steers with its hypersonic grid fins and performs a landing burn in V3 configuration: 13 engines, then 5 and finally 3, which shut down at about 200 m above the water.
Outcome
The booster splashed down in the planned area of the gulf and met its objectives, including the V3-style landing burn. The ship first shut down its three vacuum Raptors and then the three central ones, and mission control confirmed a nominal insertion into the planned trajectory.