SpaceX Shares Unseen Clip Of Starship Booster’s Soft Landing – Tower Catch In Flight 5 Says Musk
Two days after it managed to softly and successfully splash down its Starship booster in the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX has shared fresh footage of the rocket's final moments. The Starship Super Heavy booster is the most powerful rocket in the world because of its 33 Raptor rocket engines, and the fourth Starship test flight on Thursday was the first time SpaceX managed to destroy the booster at will. The test was the fourth flight of the full Starship stack and the Super Heavy booster, and the footage shows Super Heavy gliding down towards the ocean before the feed switches to the onboard cameras for the rocket's final few moments.
SpaceX's Fresh Super Heavy Footage Shows Booster Softly Splashing Down In The Gulf Of Mexico
The latest footage is the first time that SpaceX or anyone else has shared footage of the Super Heavy from an outside camera. SpaceX's early test campaigns for its Falcon 9 rockets saw regular coverage of the rocket from a distance, and this is also the case with the fourth Starship test flight. After liftoff, the first stage propelled the second stage to suborbital space and then fired up its engines multiple times as part of boost back and landing burns.
Related Story SpaceX Starship Missed Its Landing Spot By 6 Kilometers Says Musk
The booster's return profile is similar to the Falcon 9, as both rockets flip and then rely on a boost back burn to make it to the designated landing zone. Operating Super Heavy is trickier though, since it relies on more engines. These engines have proven problematic during earlier phases of the Starship test campaign, but with time, SpaceX has improved their performance.
The booster's landing footage shows the rocket gliding back toward the water and engulfed in a vapor cone before its engines light up for a landing burn. This burn reduces the rocket's speed for a smooth landing, and it is an essential part of the rocket's landing profile since SpaceX eventually plans to catch it with the launch tower.
After engine
Read more on wccftech.com
