Well folks, it’s time for Starship IFT-4!
| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-06-06 12:50 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled for (local) | 2024-06-06 07:50 (CDT) |
| Launch Window (UTC) | 2024-06-06 12:00 to 2024-03-14 14:00 (120 minutes) |
| Launch site | OLM-A, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA. |
| Booster | B11 |
| Ship | S29 |
| Booster landing | Soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico |
| Ship landing | Indian Ocean |
Webcasts
| Stream | Link |
|---|---|
| Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FkQAU5sLck |
| Everyday Astronaut | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VESowgMbjA |
| Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFkqZF-Ss7o |
| NASASpaceflight | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTkhv4fvOgA |
| LabPadre | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49s4fiyM3A |
| The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMpEWtojmY |
| SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798689697184764071 |
| The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix-la4IqYlA |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 2nd Starship Full Stack launch this year
☑️ 4th Starship Full Stack launch overall
☑️ 60th SpaceX launch this year
☑️ 371st SpaceX launch overall (including Starship hops)
☑️ 2nd launch from OLM-A this year
☑️ 83 days, 22:35:00 turnaround for this pad
Mission Details 🚀
- SpaceX website (current): Starship’s Fourth Flight Test
- SpaceX website (archived 2024-06-05): Starship’s Fourth Flight Test
Link to Starship Dev thread
We’re still flying half a ship!
Absolutely incredible performance. There are obviously some areas for improvement (booster engine out, flap seals), but the booster soft landing and ship controlled reentry were both huge steps forward.
On to IFT-5! Put some payloads on it!
Landing burn startup!
Edit: And shutdown!
Couldn’t really see how the landing burn went, but the telemetry indicated that velocity slowed to just a few km/h at zero altitude.
I can’t believe they (maybe) completed the landing burn with a shredded flap.
Between that and the booster engine issues, this seems like one of the best possible learning scenarios.
That flap was the real MVP of this mission. The little (big) flap that could.
I am curious how much of that flap was still there.
If you watch carefully during landing burn, you can see it actuate a little but then sheer sideways. It was still attached but uhh, slightly less reusable than expected lol. It looked pretty wedged in place as the final shots show the ship fully stop moving. Just incredible! I really hope we see any kind of tracking shots externally in the near future.
Confirmed payload for IFT-4! /S
Soft landing for super heavy ✅ Starship cruising in space ✅
A couple of engines failed, but wow, so much improvement on each flight.
The Super Heavy hover looked way more stable than I was expecting. Amazing progress.
The gridfins started getting active and I got some bad flashbacks, but they reigned it in for a really impressive soft landing
Yeah, I was getting nervous when the booster was plummeting at mach 2 only 10 km up and that grid fin started oscillating, but the landing burn looked super smooth, even with one engine out.
One of the forward flaps appears to be disintegrating…
Mission Control Audio: “Ship approaching max-Q. Temperatures are dropping.”
Mission Control Audio: “Ship passed through max-Q.”
Mission Control Audio: “Starship is subsonic.”
Official SpaceX livestream on X: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OwxWYzDXjWGQ
Looks like one booster engine is out. Max-Q occurred around the right time, though (T+1:01).
Starship is stacked.
Road closure is scheduled for “possible flight”.
New T-0 is 20 minutes into the launch window.
Weather is looking good.
Go America and Defender 1 range security boat move into position. Hopefully no wayward boats.
Hot stage ring jettison!
Liftoff!
Ship R-vac engines cutoff, followed shortly by center engines cutoff, and nominal insertion.
Hot staging, and boostback burn!
Landing burn and soft splashdown of the booster!
Super impressive, especially given that the booster lost an engine early on, which must have eaten into the propellant budget.
Ship camera feed reacquired at T+36:56. Nice view of one of the flaps with earth in the background.
SpaceX webcast hosts return at T+40:33.
Great to see the full flight paths achieved, that means tons of data they can use for future iterations on the design. Getting to see it all happen live on video is such a treat!
