SpaceX Starship SN15 Launch & Landing | Plus Background & Analysis

SpaceX launched and flew its SN15 Starship on May 5, 2021. The flight was the fifth for Starship in its preliminary aerodynamic configuration, as well as the third to use all three Raptor engines during landing. The launch occurred on a foggy and overcast day the Boca Chica, TX Starbase. Despite spotty camera coverage, the ascent and landing seemed to go as planned. Join us as we review the footage and put the event into context.

#SpaceX #Starship #Raptor

BTM video #255.

VIDEO CREDIT: SpaceX, NASA

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Song: Under Cover—Wayne Jones
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[jaredmulconry]

I've seen a lot of people saying that 1 engine was shut off during the landing burn. You can see in the SpaceX footage from the skirt camera that two engines were lit early in the flip and the third (left-rear) was at max gimble and showing no signs of propellant flow at any point during the landing burn. If the turbo pumps had been spun up at all, you would have seen that flow of propellant during the flip coming from that nozzle.
It's also evident from where SN15 landed that they didn't have the thrust of 3 engines during landing. Without the extra thrust of the 3rd engine, it landed on the near-side of the pad, since it wasn't pushed as far over the pad as planned.
If you follow the movement of the ground in that view during the flip, you can see that the engines that lit are not the ones SpaceX have previously used for the flip (front and right-rear vs left-rear and right-rear).
Given the previous observations, the two most likely scenarious are that SN15 was programmed to attempt a landing with those two engines (doubtful given the engines used are not ideal for a flip and landing, as well as how close to the edge of the pad it landed) or an issue was detected with the left-rear engine before the landing burn and chose not to attempt to light that engine.

That being said, it's an extraordinary improvement they have made to this ship that enabled it to land. Whether intentional or not, their first serious attempt to use a suboptimal engine arrangement for flip and landing went fantastically well. I'm confident their next attempt will be a repeat of this profile, with the goal of getting the ideal flip and landing burn.

[mynah]

Congratulations SpaceX, you've done it yet again!

[HR-pzts]

8-11 launched at the same height.
8: Am I a joke to you?

[jamespkinsella]

Yes they will succeed and on time, I have trust in SpaceX and it's leaders.

[jamespkinsella]

Wow that's it, well done SpaceX and Elon

[rodanderson]

I'm a huge fan of Elon and SpaceX. I believe they will manage to figure out how to do everything they are projecting -- regardless of how unlikely their plans sound at this time.

[baianadastrufas]

Elon is " Iron Man " !!!...😀😀😀

[rowenagrinsam]

Jeff who: DAMN....They got it right this time 🤬🤬🤬

[ole]

Congrats Spacex! Now, if we can just construct a level, concrete landing pad with an automatic fire suppression system on Mars, we'll be good to go!

[jazzunit]

Almost missed the landing pad, landing as needs to be twice as big

[SKnight]

With these complaints by SpaceX's two competitors, "ULA & Dynetics" Elon Musk should just say "screw all of you, we'll do the moon on our own" and we can even offer Dynetics and ULA moon landers a ride to the moon if they want/need it.