Rocket Launch Compilation - Starship (SN5 - IFT3)

Video from the channel Go To Space about Starship, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 27:52. Language: English. Video type: Launch.

SpaceX footage compilation covering Starship's test flights, from the hops of prototypes SN5 and SN6 to the third integrated flight (IFT-3). It includes the high-altitude flights of SN8, SN9, SN10, SN11 and SN15, launched from Starbase in Boca Chica (Cameron County, Texas), and the first three flights of the full stack formed by the Starship vehicle and the Super Heavy booster. The countdowns and commentary from the official broadcasts can be heard.

In the prototype flights, the commentators follow the ascent on three Raptor engines to about 10 km altitude; in the SN11 flight, the external camera shows Starbase shrouded in fog. In the first integrated flight the stack clears the tower and passes through the zone of maximum dynamic pressure. Starship should then have separated from Super Heavy so the ship could fire six engines for nearly six and a half minutes, but the whole stack begins to tumble without separating. In the second flight, hot staging separation is achieved for the first time. The booster then breaks apart, while the ship continues with its six engines firing. In the third, all 33 Raptors on Super Heavy work and the hot-staging separation goes well. The booster performs the boostback burn with its 13 gimbaling center engines and descends toward the Gulf of Mexico guided by its grid fins. Meanwhile, the ship keeps its six engines, a mix of vacuum and sea-level Raptors, firing for about six minutes.

The first integrated flight ended without stage separation. In the second, the booster was lost after separation, but the ship kept flying. In the third, the booster did not manage to relight its engines for splashdown, though it did demonstrate a controlled descent. The ship shut down its six engines and mission control announced a nominal orbital insertion. The commentators hail it as the flight that had gone the furthest up to that point.