Miracle Survival SpaceX Starship 13

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SpaceX Starship had a miracle happen. The landing of Starship was so soft that the fires did not cause an explosion.

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9 thoughts on “Miracle Survival SpaceX Starship 13”

  1. I must clarify it. Starship raptors ignited for the landing burn, but many Super Heavy Booster raptors failed to ignite resulting in a “hard” splashdown.

  4. You can see that a significant fraction of the heat shield tiles did not survive reentry intact. In fact, it’s possible all of them had at least a little damage. They’ve got a ways to go with them before their dream of rapid turn around is practical.

    But as things stand, even a refurbishable Starship would be a big economic win.

    • they now know exactly where all of the heat shield tiles failed and what was damaged and by how much. they know where the underlayment which ablative was damaged.

      The booster engine problems seem to be software issues that should be solved next time.

      • Yes, being able to see the damage in detail is very helpful. The fact that the damage was so widely distributed, though, is concerning. It’s not tiles in particular locations being especially stressed, the damage is very widely distributed. And the rate of damaged tiles is high enough that it’s not rare defects slipping through, the tiles are just inadequate to the job. (Where the job is surviving repeated reentries, not just one.)

        I do notice some consistent themes, though. Where the hexagonal tiles are oriented so that the point is leading, that point erodes most of the time. Maybe they need to taper the edges a bit to put the leading edges and points out of the plasma flow.

        A question: Were they able to recover the Starship? Sure, it didn’t sink, but it still was very hazardous to approach, with all that potentially explosive methane. Taking high resolution pictures with drones and telescopic lenses is one thing, but I think their forensic analysis really needs the actual physical tiles.

        I haven’t seen any news of what happened with that Starship after the landing. Towed into port, secured, sunk in place?

  5. Starship is certainly more problematic than the Falcon 1 that only had three failures until getting it right. Then again, Starship is vastly more ambitious and will have capabilities leaps and bounds above Falcon 1. So, I’m glad they got a successful launch and landing. It’s behind schedule but better late than never.

    Godspeed SpaceX. Hope to see a Starship land on the Moon and even Mars someday.

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