it was quite impressive. seems they lost the second stage, though. e/ yep, lost it. and the booster at landing. gotta admit, did not believed at all they would make it that far this time.
Having a HD camera mouted to one of the fins certainly provided a unique vantage point of the spacecraft exterior that I’ve never seen on other spacecraft reentries:
It’s too heavy! Let’s add another motor!
It’s still too heavy! Let’s add another motor!
Now it’s too heavy because of the extra motors! Let’s add two more motors!
Third time is almost the charm for SpaceX’s Starship
[…]
Things initially seemed to go perfectly. Staging occurred as expected, and the booster began its journey back to Earth. However, it appeared there was a loss of control as the booster descended, and the required engines did not all relight. The result was an impact into the Indian ocean.
Still, at least the second stage, the Starship, made it into near-orbit and re-entry. SpaceX demonstrated the opening and closing of the payload door and called out propellant transfer operations, but a number of observers noted that something was venting from Starship.
SpaceX elected to skip a planned Raptor restart but did not disclose the reasons, and the vehicle continued on to its planned re-entry. Despite some stunning imagery being returned, the last telemetry from the vehicle was received as it passed through an altitude of 65km.
That video was super cool. The audio was… intolerable though. The hosts name dropping brand names and the peanut gallery (were they all drunk?) were nauseating.