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SpaceX Starship Flight 10 completes Earth reentry test with a splashdown in the Indian Ocean

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10 months ago

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SpaceX Starship Flight 10 Splashdown

On Tuesday, SpaceX launched the Starship Flight Test vehicle to space and marked its splashdown in the Indian Ocean, becoming the most successful flight test to date.

This ship officially entered space after the previous engine failures and attitude loss in the past three flights, which eventually ended with rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD). This wasn’t the case with Ship 37, employed for Flight 10.

The ship completed the first-ever payload deployment sequence and performed a single-engine relight in the vacuum of space. These two events were followed by the reentry phase. SpaceX’s satellite internet – Starlink continues to provide the coverage for the descent, showing those flaps burning with atmospheric pressure and enduring stress.

This ship had some experiments, for example, the SpaceX team has intentionally removed a large number of tiles from the upper stage to stress-test is exposed areas on the vehicle during reentry. The ship also carried some of the newest tiles made with different materials and active cooling to explore other options.

SpaceX Starship Flight 10 Splashdown

SpaceX Starship Flight 10 Splashing down in the Indian Ocean

The ship 37 had functional catch fittings on the sides to test the fittings’ thermal performance and stability. Data gathered with this will help the company to evaluate chances for a ship catch in upcoming missions.

One of the most important things about Starship flight tests is the flight profile. SpaceX is intentionally putting this giant rocket under stress to test the hardware limit as the ship makes its way to the landing site.

Despite taking some damage in one of the rear flaps, the ship maintained attitude control while enduring maximum entry dynamic pressure. In the end, the ship fired its 3 center Raptor engines and performed a flip maneuver, followed by a splashdown in the Indian Ocean at around one hour and 6 minutes into the mission time.

Data collected from this flight test will help the SpaceX team to improve the future versions of the Starship rocket and perform these objectives even better.

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Mannoo specializes in Generative AI, Large Language Model (LLM), and Aerospace Science. Prior to delving into these fields, he was a Python programmer, a game designer, and an Android and iOS app developer with over 5 years of experience. He has prior writing experience in creative writing about smartphones and technology before working at Eonmsk.com. You can explore his X/TWitter and LinkedIn pages or contact him through his email.

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