On Thursday, January 16th, SpaceX once again launched the Starship rocket in Texas, marking the seventh test flight of the spacecraft. However, after entering space, the Starship lost contact with the ground. Nevertheless, SpaceX successfully used the “chopsticks” to catch the super heavy booster for the second time.
SpaceX’s live broadcast showed that about nine minutes after the launch, the Starship stopped transmitting data.
“We can confirm that we have indeed lost the spaceship,” said Kate Tice, SpaceX’s Senior Manager of Mass Properties.
SpaceX’s Communications Manager, Dan Huot, stated during the live broadcast that the mission control center in Texas lost contact with the Starship eight minutes into its flight after separating from the super heavy booster.
“We have indeed lost all communication with the spaceship, which basically tells us that something went wrong with the rocket,” Huot mentioned.
SpaceX did not provide further details, but losing contact with the Starship during flight likely indicates a rocket disintegration.
Shortly after 5:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday, the Starship lifted off from SpaceX’s private “Starbase” near Brownsville, Texas. Minutes later, the towering super heavy booster planned to return to the launchpad roughly seven minutes after liftoff by reigniting its Raptor engines to slow its descent from space, allowing a massive mechanical arm fixed on the launch tower to catch it like chopsticks.
This marked SpaceX’s second successful catch using chopsticks during test flights. In a previous test flight, SpaceX did not attempt to catch the booster.
There were no passengers aboard the Starship during the flight. However, SpaceX loaded 10 “Starlink simulators” in the rocket’s payload bay, intending to deploy these satellite-like objects once in space. This test flight served as a crucial examination of the rocket’s capabilities, as SpaceX aims to deploy its larger and heavier next-generation Starlink satellites using the Starship.
The Starship is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Standing at 403 feet high with a diameter of approximately 30 feet, the Starship carries a super heavy booster. Since April 2023, SpaceX has steadily increased its test flight frequency, conducting six full-scale Starship rocket system test flights.
The super heavy booster, at 232 feet tall, serves as the rocket’s liftoff point into space. It features 33 Raptor engines at its base, generating a total thrust of 16.7 million pounds, approximately twice the thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from 2022.
The Starship itself is 171 feet tall, equipped with six Raptor engines, three for operation within Earth’s atmosphere and three for operation in the vacuum of space.
Prior to losing communication, the Starship was planned to enter space, orbit the Earth halfway, re-enter the atmosphere, and crash into the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff.
Since the second test mission in March last year, SpaceX has not experienced a failure in the Starship’s second stage launch, when the rocket disintegrated upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.