Highlights: SpaceX launches Starship test flight 5

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. Read more about SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight here, or scroll through the posts below to relive the unprecedented event as it unfolded.

Cheers rang out across the livestream (and on social media) as SpaceX unexpectedly notched a successful landing of it Super Heavy booster.

Here’s a snapshot of that moment from the company’s livestream:

Spectators on the ground in Texas also caught other vantage points. Here’s a longer clip shared by SpaceX:

Elon Musk’s SpaceX certainly has its fair share of diehard fans. Hundreds of spectators can be seen lining the beaches to catch a glimpse of every Starship launch.

Outside communities of space enthusiasts, however, polls show that the American public is not all that excited about grand extraterrestrial ambitions.

Only 12 percent of US adults think returning astronauts to the?surface of the moon?should be NASA’s No. 1 priortiy, according to a Pew Research study from 2023.

That same study found 47% think space companies “are doing a mostly good job making important contributions to space exploration.” Although the majority (69%) say it’s important for the United States to remain a leader in space.

Regardless, NASA considers getting humans back to the moon vital — and it’s paying SpaceX up to $4 billion to help the space agency get there.

For the record, NASA’s Apollo program in the mid-20th century never had broad public support.

Despite that, the Apollo program made six successful crewed moon landings — and helped amass the know-how that’s made NASA (and the United States) the global space powerhouse it is today.

Jared Isaacman, the SpaceX collaborator and billionaire founder of payments platform company Shift4, shared his bowled-over reaction to the Super Heavy booster landing on social media.

Isaacman is a key SpaceX customer and collaborator. He helped fund a mission to space in 2021 called Inspiration4 — which he also flew on and commanded — before moving on to start a development program alongside SpaceX, called Polaris.

The first mission in that program, Polaris Dawn, launched in September aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Isaacman and three crewmates — including two SpaceX engineers — pushed the boundaries of that capsule by entering a radiation band and conducting the first-ever spacewalk carried out by a crew of nongovernment astronauts.

Isaacman has a second Polaris flight aboard a SpaceX capsule in the works.

And if all goes to plan, the third flight in the Polaris program will be on a Starship rocket. That flight could even be the first crewed mission of a Starship rocket ever.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson attends the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, on September 24.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson offered his virtual applause for today’s test flight on social media.

SpaceX’s Starship will play a key role in NASA’s Artemis program. It’s the vehicle that the space agency selected to carry astronauts on the final leg of their trip to the lunar surface during a mission called Artemis III, slated to lift off as soon as 2026.

Musk replied on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

“Thank you, sir! Looking forward to serving NASA in returning humanity to the Moon,” he said.

SpaceX's Super Heavy booster returns to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight on Sunday, October 13, in Boca Chica, Texas.

Today’s test flight will be counted as a roaring success at SpaceX.

Not only did the Super Heavy booster survive its daring return back to the launchpad, the Starship spacecraft appeared to fare much better during its descent back from space — avoiding the severe wear and tear that veered its predecessor off target during the last test in June.

Here’s what’s gone down so far:

The SpaceX Starship spacecraft lands in the ocean on October 13.

The Starship spacecraft just hit its landing mark. It made a controlled splashdown in the ocean.

“I think it is safe to say we have a ship in the water,” said Kate Tice, a SpaceX engineer.

SpaceX does not intend to recover the ship. Instead, it’s practicing a maneuver that could be used for landing the Starship back on dry land in the future.

The vehicle has drastically slowed down. It’s now back in the thick of Earth’s atompshere and it’s preparing to make its bellyflop maneuver.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has likened this move to that of a skydiver. The spaceship will orient itself horizontally relative to the ground, allowing it to free fall. Just before touchdown, the vehicle will relight its engines and swoop back into a vertical orientation.

The Starship vehicle is heading home, and the vehicle is getting scorched as it flies back into the atmosphere.

According to SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, the vehicle just hit a second “Max Q.”

That milestone occurs first during launch. Max Q is an aerospace term that refers to the point during flight at which a vehicle experiences its maximum dynamic pressure.

Essentially, it means the vehicle is still traveling really fast when the atmosphere is very thick, putting the highest strain on the spacecraft.

Starship is offering views throughout its flight today. And engineers on the company’s webcast say that’s made possible by Starlink, SpaceX’s constellation of internet-beaming satellites.

“As with previous flights, Starlink may actually enable us to talk with the ship through reentry with no communication blackout,” according to the webcast. “We of course, are still testing Starlink during this phase of flight, so nothing is certain, but if we do have views, we’ll be sure to bring those to you.”

Spacecraft coming home from orbit routinely suffer a communications blackout because of the plasma buildup on the spacecraft’s exterior. That blackout can last several minutes. Avoiding that downtime by using Starlink could be a big deal for future flights of Starship, and potentially other spacecraft.

The SpaceX Starship spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday.

The Starship spacecraft is beginning the nail-biting feat of reentering Earth’s atmosphere while still traveling more than 21 times the speed of sound.

The extreme pressure and friction of this phase of flight lead to massive temperatures — as high as 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, according to SpaceX engineers.

That heat can literally change the state of matter for the surrounding atmosphere, morphing it into a thin layer of plasma around the vehicle. On the livestream, it shows up as a vibrant, glowing band of hot pink.

The SpaceX Starship rocket flies above Earth on October 13.

Half of the Starship rocket system is back on Earth, as the Super Heavy booster is sitting triumphantly back at its designated landing spot. But the Starship spacecraft is soaring through space.

Currently, the vehicle is coasting at about 26,200 kilometers per hour (16,300 miles per hour).

The spacecraft isn’t technically in “orbit.” We can loosely define orbit as a trajectory into space that is fast enough and on the right path to allow a vehicle to begin traveling around Earth, avoiding being pulled immediately back down by gravity.

But while the Starship is traveling near orbital speeds and on a fairly horizontal trajectory, the vehicle is not attempting to make endless loops around the planet. Instead, for this test flight, Starship is merely getting some coasting time in space while allowing gravity to naturally lower its altitude.

That gravitational tug will eventually drag Starship out of space — a nail-biting event known as atmospheric reentry that will put massive strain on the vehicle as it heats up to thousands of degrees Fahrenheit due to the pressure and friction.

Reentry is expected to begin at T+48 mintues. Starship will then use its engines to attempt to guide itself to a controlled landing over the Indian Ocean, a practice for future test flights when SpaceX will attempt to return the spacecraft back to dry land.

The SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster returns to the launch pad near Boca Chica, Texas, on Sunday, October 13.

The Super Heavy booster is now back at its launchpad, suspended mid-air between two massive metal arms — called “chopsticks.”

Waves of deafening cheers rang out on the livestream as SpaceX engineers and employees celebrated the achievement.

While the Super Heavy booster’s job is over, the Starship spacecraft is still soaring through space. The vehicle lit up its own engines after detaching from the booster. And it’s now coasting through space.

In about one hour, Starship will reenter Earth’s atmosphere — another high-risk, must-watch milestone for today’s flight. The ship will attempt a landing maneuver over the Indian Ocean.

“This is absolutely insane!” screamed SpaceX engineer Kate Tice on the livestream.

The Super Heavy booster just made it into the arms of Mechazilla, SpaceX’s launch tower.

The SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster returns to the launch pad near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13.

It’s happening: SpaceX has given the Super Heavy booster the command to make its landing attempt.

It wasn’t clear going into flight if SpaceX would make this attempt. A lot had to go right. But engineers report the tower and booster are in good health, paving the way for this historic milestone.

SpaceX might be going for it. Engineers deemed the ground pad ready to attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster as it plummets back toward Earth.

The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket booster just made it through a crucial moment in the mission: stage separation.

That’s when Super Heavy shut down its engines, as the rocket booster has now burned through most of its fuel.

Starship then ignited its own engines and thrust itself away from the Super Heavy booster in a maneuver SpaceX calls “hot staging.”

Hot staging is essentially pushing the Starship booster away from Super Heavy by way of blunt force trauma.

The SpaceX rocket just hit?“Max Q,” an aerospace term that refers to the point during flight at which a vehicle experiences its maximum dynamic pressure.

Put simply: It’s when the rocket is moving at very high speed, at a time when the atmosphere is still pretty thick, putting a lot of pressure on the vehicle.

The SpaceX Starship launches near Boca Chica, Texas, on Sunday, October 13.

The Super Heavy rocket booster just fired up its engines, of which there are 33, and is blaring toward space. The Starship spacecraft is riding atop.

This test flight of the Starship spacecraft is expected to last about one hour from beginning to end, but the big show for today — a possible attempt to land the Super Heavy booster back at the launch site — should happen just seven minutes into flight.

A very good sign for this morning’s flight just came from launch officials:

Engineers are “not working any technical issues. Range is expected to clear. We’re just clearing out a few more boats, and as you can see, the weather is perfect. We had 100% go for launch from the weather officer,” said Dan Huot of SpaceX’s communications team on the webcast.

The “Range” is the area near the launch site that must be cleared for safety. That includes boats and ships in the surrounding waters (a frequent issue for launch attempts) and aircraft in the nearby skies.

SpaceX says the Super Heavy rocket booster’s return back to Earth will offer up a new feature for the fifth test flight: deafening sonic booms.

The company said this “unique aspect” will be caused by the vehicle traveling faster than the speed of sound, sending a ripple of noise through the landscape.

While sonic booms of varying degrees of loudness have rung out on prior test flights, SpaceX expects the ones caused by the booster return may be more intense.

Here’s what the company had to say about it in a blog post:

Shown here is a close-up view of SpaceX's Starship rocket in Boca Chica, Texas, in February 2022.

SpaceX isn’t just trying to recover the Super Heavy booster.

The company also wants to one day land and reuse the upper Starship spacecraft.

For this flight, however, SpaceX will only aim to practice a belly flop landing maneuver over the Indian Ocean rather than attempting to stick a landing on terra firma. But to get to that point, Starship has to survive reentry — a breakneck process that occurs as the vehicle blares back into the thick of the Earth’s atmosphere while still traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour.

The pressure and friction can cause extreme temperatures.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said after the last test flight that the reentry process left Starship badly damaged.

One problem was the loss of heat shield tiles — thousands of small, black hexagons affixed to the spacecraft’s exterior that are meant to shield the vehicle from extreme temperatures during reentry.

But SpaceX has put in some upgrades this time around, according to a recent blog post:

Ron Parker holds pieces of heat shield tiles he found after the first test launch of Space X's Starship in Boca Chica, Texas, in April 2023.

One problem that Starship encountered during its fourth test flight in June, according to CEO Elon Musk, was the loss of heat shield tiles — or thousands of small, black hexagons affixed to the spacecraft’s exterior that are meant to shield the vehicle from extreme temperatures during reentry.

Losing a large number of those tiles deeply hindered the vehicle’s ability to attempt a soft landing, according to Musk. During a livestream of that mission, viewers could actually see chunks of the tiles ripping off the vehicle during its descent, and one of the Starship’s wings appeared warped and worn — barely clinging on to the spacecraft’s body.

“Because of lost tiles…the forward flaps were so melted it was like trying to control it with little skeleton hands,” Musk said during a July interview posted to YouTube.

He added that the issue caused Starship to land roughly 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) away from its intended splashdown site in the ocean.

The livestream for today’s test flight launch attempt just kicked off on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

Hosting the event are SpaceX engineers Kate Tice and Jessie Anderson.

SpaceX is moving forward with loading propellant, the company announced via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The propellant includes?liquid methane?and?superchilled liquid oxygen?— or “LOX” — which serves as the oxidizer. Both are pumped into the rocket from nearby tanks.

The rocket holds millions of pounds of fuel and oxidizer. Super Heavy alone can hold up to?8 million pounds (3,700 metric tons)?of propellant, while the Starship spacecraft can hold another?3 million (1,500 metric tons).

SpaceX's Starbase launch facility under construction in Boca Chica, Texas, in October 2021.

Starbase lies next to Boca Chica Beach, the strip of coastline on the Gulf of Mexico that lies at the southernmost tip of Texas.

Only one roadway runs in and out of the area: A narrow stretch of asphalt called Boca Chica Highway. The westbound lane includes a US Border Patrol checkpoint.

Before SpaceX moved in, there were only a couple dozen homes nearby in an area called Boca Chica Village. And locals from the neighboring city of Brownsville routinely trekked to Boca Chica Beach to enjoy the rare slice of untouched coastline.

Most longtime residents have since been pushed out. SpaceX has purchased and painted many of the homes, allowing employees to move in. And launchpads now lie mere steps from the sand.

And the company’s presence has only grown from there: Rows of airstream trailers provide temporary housing for workers. A small restaurant for employees lies just off the road. And there are colossal buildings and work yards with scraps of rocket bodies lying about.

Some locals are angered to see their once remote beach community overrun by SpaceX employees and rocket construction.

And SpaceX has repeatedly drawn the ire of environmentalists who say the company has disregarded local wildlife and dumped wastewater into the surrounding wetlands. (The company has denied the allegations.)

The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12.

In its first big update of the day, SpaceX revealed that it’s aiming for a takeoff time of 7:25 a.m. CT (8:25 a.m. ET) this morning.

That target liftoff time is cutting it close for SpaceX’s 30-minute launch window, which opens at 7 a.m. CT (8 a.m. ET.) A launch window is a specific time frame in which a rocket is permitted to lift off.

So, if SpaceX doesn’t fire up the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft by 7:30 a.m. CT (8:30 a.m. ET), the company may have to push this launch attempt to another day.

SpaceX Starship explodes after launching during a flight test in April 2023.

Starship development has so far centered on a series of increasingly complex test flights, beginning in 2019 with brief hop tests of a vehicle nicknamed “Starhopper” that lifted mere feet off the ground.

After that, the company moved on to testing larger scale versions of the Starship vehicle on brief suborbital test flights. Many of those crashed and burned as SpaceX hashed out how to get the vehicle to land upright.

More recently, the company has focused on more daring launches of fully stacked Starships atop Super Heavy boosters. (The Super Heavy is the bottom part of the Starship system, giving the vehicle the initial thrust at liftoff and enough power to reach orbit.)

The inaugural test launch of a Starship and Super Heavy — called an integrated test flight — took off in April 2023.

That launch aimed solely to get the 400-foot (121-meter) vehicle off the launchpad. And it did just that before exploding mere minutes into flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Each of the three test flights since then have incrementally improved upon the last.

SpaceX is known to embrace fiery mishaps in the early stages of spacecraft development, saying these failures help the company rapidly implement design changes that lead to better results.

SpaceX's Starship launches its fourth flight test from Boca Chica, Texas, on June 6.

You may have heard Starship is the biggest rocket ever created. And it is — by a long shot.

Starship stands at nearly 400 feet (121 meters) tall and packs 16.7 million pounds (7,590 tons) of force at liftoff.

Let’s compare that to some of the other largest rockets ever constructed —?past and present.

A NASA artist’s illustration of Artemis astronauts working on the Moon.

SpaceX — and NASA — have huge goals for this rocket.

NASA wants to use Starship to carry out the final leg of the journey to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time in five decades as part of its Artemis program. The space agency gave SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract in 2021 to get the job done, and it inked another $1 billion deal after that.

Starship is also the linchpin of SpaceX’s goal of getting humans to Mars. The company’s founding purpose is to make humans a multi-planetary species, sending them to live on other planets in case Earth becomes unsuitable for life.

That task would require a truly massive rocket.

“We are trying to build something that is capable of creating a permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars — that’s why it is so large,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said last year.

Whether that goal is feasible — economically, technologically and politically — remains to be seen. But Musk and SpaceX have garnered a diehard fanbase rallied around the idea.

Other items on the agenda for Starship:

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lands upright for the first time in the Atlantic Ocean on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship in April 2016.

SpaceX has always made a big deal about reusing rocket parts.

Landing boosters after flight is a feat that SpaceX has mastered with its smaller workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9.

In fact, Falcon 9 boosters have made soft touchdowns on seafaring platforms or ground pads after more than 330 launches — allowing those vehicles to be refurbished and flown again. SpaceX says that has driven down its costs, allowing the company to underprice the rest of the rocket market.

The Falcon 9 boosters land by relighting their engines after detaching from the second stage, or upper portion, of the rocket (which continues into space, carrying satellites or astronauts). The booster then steers itself back toward a platform at sea or on land.

Just before touchdown, the Falcon 9 fires up its engines again — essentially using that power as a braking system.

Starship, meanwhile, is a far more powerful and complex system than the Falcon 9.

With 33 engines at its base, each more powerful than one of the nine used on the Falcon, the Super Heavy booster packs roughly 10 times the amount of thrust at liftoff.

Rather than setting Super Heavy down on legs, it will be guided back to a massive tower with two “chopstick” arms that will attempt to catch the booster as it comes in for landing.

Elon Musk speaks in Paris in 2023.

Musk acknowledged during a July interview posted to YouTube that SpaceX’s goal for this flight “sounds kind of insane,” though its “got a decent chance of working.”

“We’re not breaking physics,” he said, “so success is one of the possible outcomes here.”

Previously, the CEO said he imagined there was about an 80% to 90% chance that SpaceX would figure out a way to catch the booster back at the launch tower at some point in 2024.

Today’s flight will mark the third uncrewed test flight of Starship so far this year — but the first time ever that SpaceX has attempted to steer the Super Heavy booster back to a dry landing.

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket in Boca Chica, Texas, in November 2023.

Today — for the first time ever — the company will attempt to put a unique concept to the test.

If all goes according to plan, once it separates from the Starship spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster will steer itself into the arms of Mechazilla, a massive structure back at SpaceX’s launch site that the company hopes will catch rockets mid-air as they head in for landing.

The tower was dubbed “Mechazilla” by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for its likeness to a metallic Godzilla.

The structure’s arms, or “chopsticks,” can be used to stack and move boosters and spacecraft at the launch site before takeoff as well as snag a rocket as it maneuvers to land, according to SpaceX.

Musk has said SpaceX will evaluate how Mechazilla holds up during launch before giving the Super Heavy the green light to attempt to return to the ground pad.

SpaceX also has the option to wave off the landing attempt and send Super Heavy to a splashdown in the ocean.

Either way, the Super Heavy’s landing will occur about seven minutes after liftoff.

Elon Musk, left, and FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker.

For years, there’s appeared to be no love lost between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches.

Musk has repeatedly used X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that he purchased two years ago for $44 billion, to blast the FAA.

In a September 17?post, he threatened to sue the agency for “regulatory overreach.”

Musk — who has taken an increasingly vocal stance on politics, voicing distaste for the Biden administration and his support for former President Donald Trump — also posted on?September 25?that he believes FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker “should resign.”

Musk has also alleged the agency’s activities have been “politically motivated” to punish SpaceX.

Musk’s claims came after the?FAA proposed?$633,009 in civil penalties against SpaceX over violating launch license requirements twice during flights of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX has denied wrongdoing related to those requirements, saying none of the allegations related to public safety. In a September 18 letter, the company said that it also gave FAA advanced notice of changes to its launch operations and the agency failed to act in a timely manner.

Still, the FAA has granted SpaceX its long-awaited license to move forward with Starship’s fifth uncrewed test launch. The agency announced Saturday that SpaceX had “met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight.”

Onlookers watch as SpaceX's Starship rocket is prepared for a test launch in Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday.

It’s that time again: SpaceX is kicking off yet another daring test flight of its Starship rocket. There’s no crew on board. And like all practice runs for this developmental rocket, success is not guaranteed.

But SpaceX is hoping to keep improving, building on four prior test flights that have showed significant progress: The very first attempt in April 2023 cleared the launchpad before exploding moments later. But the last test, in June, saw both Starship and its Super Heavy rocket booster survive the full flight and practice landing maneuvers.

Here’s what to expect today: