Well folks, Starship IFT-3 is finally here!
Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-03-14 13:25 |
---|---|
Scheduled for (local) | 2024-03-14 08:25 (CDT) |
Launch Window (UTC) | 2024-03-14 12:00 to 2024-03-14 13:50 (110 minutes) |
Launch site | OLM-A, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA. |
Booster | B10 |
Ship | S28 |
Booster landing | B10 to perform a soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico |
Ship landing | S28 expected to impact the Indian Ocean |
Webcasts
Stream | Link |
---|---|
Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIde9hGPy18 |
Everyday Astronaut | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixZpBOxMopc |
Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfnkZFtHPmM |
NASASpaceflight | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxCYzixV3s |
LabPadre | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbNL6cf1Rww |
The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Mhe9ZIjo4 |
SpaceX | https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1768258691319689232 |
The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcTxmw_yZ_c |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 3rd Starship Full Stack launch
☑️ 337th SpaceX launch overall (including Starship hops)
☑️ 25th SpaceX launch this year
☑️ 1st launch from OLM-A this year
☑️ 117 days, 0:22:10 turnaround for this pad
Mission Details 🚀
- SpaceX website (current): Starship’s Third Flight Test
- SpaceX website (archived 2024-03-13): Starship’s Third Flight Test
Link to Starship Dev thread
Looks like the ship lost roll control. It was re-entering pretty side on instead of belly first. Tim Dodd thought the hot gas thrusters may have gotten clogged with ice.
It is looking like it might go on first attempt!
Prop load closed out. Winds are looking good.
Onboard views from the booster and ship this time!
This thread definitely!
Time to go scrub our bathroom floors to get the concept out of the universe’s system.
I can’t watch any videos right now, how is it going?
Starship is descending into the atmosphere
Wings have just folded at 110km altitude
Views of re-entry! Look at that plasma!
Hosted webcast is back. Payload door opening and propellant transfer were tested, still awaiting data review. Raptor relight imminent.
Edit: It sounds like Starship decided to skip the raptor relight. Going straight to reentry.
As much as I’d like for those rotations to be intentional, for now I’m assuming they didn’t relight because they lost orientational control.
So I guess still no orbital flight for test 4? I imagine relighting an engine in space was a requirement.
Yeah, that would seem prudent. Wouldn’t want a Starship stuck in orbit and then reentering uncontrollably, a la Long March 5B.
Still no signal from the ship. Reentry started a little bit early, so I would think it would be transonic by now.
Edit: Loss of S28 confirmed on the webcast.
well, that was pretty good. i wonder why the booster reentry was osscilating so much, and the ship reentry didnt seem very controlled either. incredible video from the ship during reentry though.
Thanks to everyone posting in here, couldn’t watch the webcast so it was good to catch up on everything that happened!
Wayward boats again…
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1768243304054092192
New liftoff time is 8:02 a.m. CT, team is clearing a few boats from the keep out area in the Gulf of Mexico
On the bright side, it’s now scheduled for after sunrise, and the fog seems to be clearing!
Dang boats, always disappoint. Hopefully it’s for the best!
Looks like some sort of fuelling is underway. Or at least chilling lines in the OLM and tower in preparation for filling.
I think this is the correct link for the SpaceX official feed on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1LyxBnOvzvOxN
Looks like it’s scheduled to start at 6:56 CDT now that launch is targeting 7:30 AM CDT.
Thanks! Added to the main post.