00:23All right, so we are 42 minutes and change into today's flight test.
00:28You're seeing the light show start as Starship is getting closer to its re-entry.
00:34If you're just tuning in, we were able to successfully make it to orbit, run into a couple of issues
00:40as we've coasted to our entry point over the Indian Ocean.
00:44At this point, we had lost attitude control of the ship and entered into a spin.
00:49The team made the call to do what's called passivate the vehicle.
00:54So we're essentially venting all of the remaining propellant overboard.
00:58And it's going to make an uncontrolled re-entry.
01:01Important to note, this is a contingency that is planned for.
01:05And we clear the zones in the Indian Ocean where these entries could take place.
01:11So we're not going to come down exactly where we would have had nothing happened.
01:14But we do clear a tremendous amount of space out in the Indian Ocean in the event that we run
01:22into this.
01:23We understand that there are always risks, essentially, with these flight tests, with the hardware.
01:28But we don't really accept any compromise when it comes to protecting people.
01:33And it is one thing to note is we will actually still re-enter in our planned airspace zone, which
01:40is good.
01:40That is exactly what we planned for.
01:43You know, we do plan for, if something does go a little bit off nominal, that we have enough airspace
01:49cleared out for situations just like this.
01:51Yeah. Re-entry is still just that really critical phase that we need to try and gather as much data,
01:58as much information as possible.
02:00A fully reusable heat shield has never been flown before, the history of space flight.
02:06And that's something that Starship still has to crack.
02:10And so we had a whole range of experiments on this one at this point.
02:14And we just started to lose some of our cameras.
02:16So it's very possible that we'll start to lose contact with Starship a lot sooner than we would have if
02:24it was a nominal re-entry.
02:26So we are expecting it to break up, essentially, on its re-entry over the Indian Ocean.
02:31So not able to do a lot of our on-orbit objectives today, but just the fact that we, you
02:39know, got it into space was just, that was just a really big moment for a lot of the team.
02:43Yeah. And another thing to note is that Super Heavy did fly for its second flight today.
02:49It first flew on flight seven, and it made it all the way to our shutdown of all the engines
02:56and stage separation, getting ship into its suborbital trajectory today.
03:00It did ignite its 13 engines, but it did demise at that point.
03:06We did plan to fly it back down to Earth at a higher angle of attack, and we do expect
03:13it to stress the vehicle a lot more than what we've seen previously.
03:17So it's not unexpected that we did lose the booster before we got to the actual landing.
03:21Yeah. So we're going to continue to hang out and see if we get any updates on ship.
03:28It does look like we might be getting some video back soon.
03:32There we go.
03:35So this is a view essentially on the top part of Starship.
03:41You're looking up at the payload bay and towards the nose cone.
03:45So views are going to be a little bit scarce potentially as, again, we are in essentially a tumble.
03:53We had lost that attitude control.
03:55So Starlink, when it's able to connect, able to feed this down, we are at the phase where we would
04:01expect entry to start within the next minute or so.
04:04So we are entering uncontrolled.
04:07But again, we're entering into an airspace and a sea space that is cleared and monitored in advance of launch
04:12and before we get to this phase.
04:14And with the views that we are able to see, you are seeing a lot of that plasma build up
04:19during reentry.
04:21We do expect the vehicle to see about 1400 degrees Celsius.
04:24And there you can see the flap feeling that temperature there a little bit melting away.
04:32But as we expected with the spinning of the vehicle, we are no longer controlling the attitude of the vehicle.
04:41So this is now, at this point in the test flight, it is expected to see it begin to demise
04:49a little bit on its way back down to Earth.
04:51Yeah.
04:51And so we'll stick with it for as long as we're kind of getting any reach back from the ship
04:58as it starts to make this reentry.
05:03But, yeah.
05:04So it's reentering actively right now.
05:08And again, we did do what's called passivation.
05:11So you essentially vent all of your excess propellant overboard before you hit the atmosphere.
05:16That's a safety measure we can take on the ship while you still have contact with it.
05:21So that was done.
05:22It's now coming down in the predetermined hazard area that was cleared ahead of flight.
05:27Not controlled, so we're not going to get all of that reentry data that we're still really looking forward to.
05:33This is kind of a new generation of ship that has different flaps, improved heat shield, a whole lot of
05:40things that we're really trying to really put through the wringer.
05:43As there's a whole lot we still need to learn before we get to kind of the next step that
05:48we're hoping for, which is going to be that ship going orbital and eventually coming back here for a catch.
05:53So getting through one of these fully is going to be really important.
05:58It's not going to be today, but we are just going to stick with the ship, see what else we
06:02can learn as it makes its way through the atmosphere and brings an end to the ninth flight test.
06:09So we'll stick with it.
07:10If you're just now joining us, we did have an on-time liftoff from Starbase, Texas at 6.30 p
07:16.m. Central Time of the Flight 9 vehicle.
07:19We did have some incredibly stressing objectives today.
07:25The Super Heavy Booster flew for its second flight.
07:29It first flew on Flight 9 and made its way to take ship all the way up to stage separation,
07:35doing its first second flight ever, which is pretty incredible.
07:39We did lose the booster on the way back down as we did fly it back down at a higher
07:44angle of attack.
07:45So as expected, we did have it demise on the way back down.
07:49Yeah, we were able to get all the way to that landing burn, though.
07:52So we made it through that higher angle of attack.
07:55So a lot of great data that's going to help us improve those future booster flights.
07:59Yeah, we did do the directional flip, and it worked.
08:01It was actually a great view that we saw.
08:04And then ship continued six healthy Raptor engines in the beginning of its flight, making it all the way to
08:10Seaco and coasting for quite a while.
08:12So we made it to the expected time that we would open up the payload door.
08:18Unfortunately, the door did not open as we expected it to, so we did not deploy the eight-star link
08:23satellites.
08:24Yeah, we ran into a couple of issues once ship got there, but I can tell you it was a
08:29pretty crazy moment for a lot of the people that were standing here for ship to make it there.
08:36It's been a couple of flights, but it was really exciting to see.
08:39We ran into some issues on orbit.
08:41We weren't able to deploy the star links.
08:43We eventually lost attitude control, dealing with some propellant links inside of the ship, and we did lose attitude control.
08:50And just to confirm, we did lose contact with the ship officially a couple of minutes ago, so that brings
08:56an end to the ninth flight test.
08:58So still a lot of work to do, but really big moment.
09:02Chris, how's everybody doing over there in Hawthorne?
09:06What's the vibes, man?
09:07Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a test program, and that's what we're here to do.
09:11We're here to learn, and that was definitely the vibe and the atmosphere here at Hawthorne.
09:15Would have been great to see ship get all the way through its objectives today, but with all of that
09:19data that came down through the Starlink system,
09:22we're definitely going to learn, and we're definitely going to fix that and push forward.
09:26Also, great to see the responsible engineers here in mission control talking with the flight control teams in Starbase.
09:32We talked about how it's great having that expert knowledge on console to be able to go to at a
09:39moment's notice,
09:40and that really helped us make the right decisions in orbit today when we decided to passivate the vehicle.
09:44So we will be here looking forward to Flight 10 and some success on future flights.
09:51All right.
09:52Well, obviously, congratulations to everybody that poured so much time, effort into getting this ship, this rocket, off the pad.
10:01The last two months have been an absolute, like, gauntlet for a lot of people, and we're continuing to learn
10:08more about this ship, about this rocket.
10:11We are trying to do something that is impossibly hard, and it's not always going to—you're not going to reach
10:16it in a straight line.
10:17We said there's going to be bumps.
10:18There's going to be turns.
10:19But seeing that ship in space today was a hell of a moment for us.
10:23So congratulations to every single person who put time, effort, sweat, anything into that rocket.
10:31Yeah.
10:31This is exactly the SpaceX way.
10:33We're going to learn, iterate, and iterate over and over again until we figure it out.
10:39So thank you to everybody for tuning in.
10:42Thank you for the fine people of Cameron County, including the residents of the newest city of Starbase, as well
10:48as the Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration, Government of Mexico, as well as the Australian Space Agency.
10:54All right.
10:54Now, this is not the end.
10:56We're going to have a whole bunch of cool liftoff stuff, so be sure to follow us on X at
11:00SpaceX for more.
11:01And we will see you back here for Flight 10.
11:11We'll see you next time.
Comments