Starship's Twelfth Flight Test

https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-12

by pantalaimon • 2 months ago

120 100 2 months ago

maccam94• 2 months ago

Dang, they aren't catching the booster this time, but I guess V3 is practically a new vehicle and validating the next Starship launch is probably too critical to risk damage to the launch site for now.

amarant• 2 months ago

Oh hey, you're right! Somehow I read "water landing" and interpreted it as landing on one of the barges (ocisly or jrti) any clue why that isn't the case? Is super heavy just too big for the barges maybe?

pixl974• 2 months ago

Superheavy is 10x larger than the Falcon. Its thrust would sink the barge.

wmf• 2 months ago

It doesn't have landing legs so it has to be caught by chopsticks. They're skipping the barges; either it lands back at the pad or it doesn't land.

ggreer3• 2 months ago

They won't use barges because the booster has no landing legs (to save weight), and because the booster is massive compared to Falcon 9. Also Starship is meant for rapid reusability, and it can take days to return a barge to port and unload the booster. Getting barge landings to work would be a distraction from the goal of Starship, and SpaceX already has Falcon 9 for current payloads.

And they won't attempt a catch with the first V3 booster because it's not worth the risk. They can build a new booster every couple of months. It takes much longer to build the launch/catch tower, and they don't have any spare towers yet. A catastrophe during a booster/ship catch would set them back a year, so they'll only attempt a catch if they're confident it will succeed.

HerbManic2• 2 months ago

The booster catch is a useful trick but when the focus is just getting SS3 into orbit without incident, you can drop a few of the boosters in the ocean with the intent to fix at a later point.

ufmace• 2 months ago

I think it's a few things:

They're already highly confident that if they have sufficient control over the booster trajectory they can execute the chopstick catch, so they don't particularly need to demonstrate that part more. Executing a pseudo-landing at sea lets them validate their booster flight controls perfectly fine without risking the launch tower and associated hardware. They can also do stuff like stretch the trajectory and control mechanisms to their limits to see how much they can handle, and not too big a deal if something goes wrong. Presumably any actual landings will be well within the known safe limits on all parameters.

I bet this first booster also has a lot of minor weird things associated with shaking out the manufacturing process, and they don't entirely mind testing to destruction the first one to get rid of it permanently and use the ones coming from a more proven manufacturing process for important work.

pixl974• 2 months ago

There is a 70% chance for storms in the area tomorrow so it's very likely going to be a scrub tomorrow.

Recurecur• 2 months ago

AccuWeather has it at the infamous 51% probability level for thunderstorms at 5 CST, so there’s still a decent chance for success tomorrow.

Time will tell!

PyWoody2• 2 months ago

The percentage isn't the percent of it occurring but the area affected. So 51% of thunderstorms means 51% of that town/county/etc. will experience thunderstorms.

ericcumbee3• 2 months ago

the real question is what is our probability of Launch Commit Criteria Violation at T-0. i've seen them be no go at t-10 with a 10% chance of go and watched it lift off on time.

HerbManic2• 2 months ago

Possible, but that is still reasonable odds.

Reminds me of the line from The Naked Gun "Doctors give him a 50% chance of living, but there is only a 10% chance of that."

cooper_ganglia• 2 months ago

These are always exciting, even if it's more of the same. I love that we live in a time where we can regularly watch huge rockets launch into space with intentional issues just to see what might go wrong and how best to monitor/solve them.

Congratulations, everyone, at being alive at the best point in human history so far!

olliepro• 2 months ago

With super high res onboard camera footage too.

valine• 2 months ago

The two modified satellites will test hardware planned for Starlink V3 and will attempt to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions

Hope we get to see those images. Would be awesome to see a 3rd person view of starship in space.

Nevermark3• 2 months ago

I am watching Elon give a long speech about the launch, scarily delivered at high speed, without pause. Including a Bitcoin marathon promotional informercial complete with an on-screen scan code. "That QR code is your boarding pass." He just repeated several paragraphs verbatim from a few minutes ago.

He occasionally mentions the aspirational 100x reduction in launch costs.

AI slop. Yuck, Youtube. Surely Google could have AI moderators catching this crap.

sfjailbird2• 2 months ago

That's a fake youtube channel that is somehow allowed to squat the SpaceX channel name. It's been going on for years, including the crypto scam. Baffling. Maybe a big middle finger from Google to Elon.

Pedro_Ribeiro• 2 months ago

You know Google owns a big part of SpaceX right?

ericcumbee3• 2 months ago

the scammers steal channels, rename them and run those until google shuts them down. which they typically do but its swatting flies.

jiggawatts• 2 months ago

It probably is AI generated.

My very first exposure to "AI spam" was trying to watch one of the Starship test launches, the second one if I remember correctly.

That was around the time that Elon bought Twitter, so he removed all publicity video streams from third-party platforms like YouTube and moved them to Twitter's streaming service.

I wanted to watch this on my big TV, so I was hunting through YouTube for the stream. I found the most likely looking one and watched as Elon got up on a stage, started waffling on about how this is the "future of humanity" and then with 40 seconds to go before the launch the (entirely realistic) AI voice was dubbed over and started offering "double your Bitcoin if you transfer to this account", with the obligatory QR code in the corner.

I was actually impressed by the audacity!

The really frustrating thing was that YouTube then promptly blocked all content even vaguely related to the launch! It was impossible to keyword search for anything that said "starship", "spacex", etc.

It was a scary preview of instant corporate censorship.

I'm sure the person (or bot!) at YouTube "meant well", but sheesh... they just erased the online presence of dozens of legitimate space-fan channels like NASA Space Flight. And NASA. And SpaceX's official channel too!

Ironically this meant that the only remaining matches were 100% scams.

Nevermark3• 2 months ago

Ironically this meant that the only remaining matches were 100% scams.

I am wondering if some of this is unmarked paid advertising. I can't imagine any other incentive for Youtube to effectively align its brand with Ick.

Ads, as one of the prophets said, are the Devil.

throw310822• 2 months ago

The incredible thing to me is that I've reported one of these videos to YouTube and got an answer back via email saying "we checked the video and it's fine for us". This should be enough to sue Google on the basis that they made an active choice to keep it up.

Nevermark3• 2 months ago

I do think it is "criminal", in the social sense.

I find it hard to identify the incentives. It isn't simply playing anything for pay.

There are blurred lines or hidden effects between the situation they see vs. the apparent situation we see.

lysace2• 2 months ago

Ignorant eyeballs are also eyeballs. One might argue - sometimes even more profitable eyeballs.

Silicon Valley built this machine. Many tens of thousands of software engineers worked on this.

sfjailbird2• 2 months ago

This is the first flight of the new engines. They look so much sleeker and simpler than the previous two generations:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGMtnP...

* And supposedly with a 20% power increase to boot!

chasd002• 2 months ago

The stats are pretty out there. Iirc just the fuel pump, which you can probably pick up and put on your desk, generates 100k HP.

jvanderbot2• 2 months ago

Well, it's powered by bleeding exhaust from a very big rocket.

MattDamonSpace• 2 months ago

Oh wow that photo is from years ago but you’re correct, this is the first flight of that design

russdill2• 2 months ago

SN1 was a test engine, the flight engines are even cleaner https://fixupx.com/interstellargw/status/2057165036196409820

Culonavirus• 2 months ago

Booster dry mass savings of around one ton per engine iirc.

dylan604• 2 months ago

Raptor1 looks like the steampunk or mad max version

chasd002• 2 months ago

Really looking forward to seeing raptor 3 fly. Those engines are insane.

dayyan• 2 months ago

Everyday Astronaut has posted a video on this launch https://x.com/Erdayastronaut/status/2057163096817332576?s=20

Diederich• 2 months ago

I'm watching it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ecCDqTSJs As always, Tim is doing a fantastic job.

purpleidea• 2 months ago

I don't know why they aren't doing more booster catches. Kind of a bit disappointed they keep skipping. Either they can land them or they can't. If it's not consistent then they're avoiding the possible failure so their stock price (launching soon) stays up, otherwise just prove it's solid and actually works.

GMoromisato6• 2 months ago

V3 booster has a lot of changes, including a brand new downcomer, an integrated hot-staging ring, and 3 instead of 4 grid fins. Chances of a RUD are not 0.

If Flight 12 blows up in space, they've already got Flight 13 almost assembled. It might delay them a month, maybe. But if a returning booster destroys the launch pad, it would delay them much longer--maybe a year.

With those stakes, it makes sense to not try a booster catch until they're sure it's going to work.

ggreer3• 2 months ago

They can build new boosters pretty quickly. New launch/catch towers take a lot longer, and they don't have any redundancy yet. Also they weren't going to reuse their V2 boosters once V3 was ready, so they could learn more by testing things like intentionally disabling an engine during the landing burn or flying at a higher angle of attack.

pixl974• 2 months ago

Either they can land them or they lose a billion dollars and 9 months when they crash the tower.

GMoromisato6• 2 months ago

There is a lot riding on V3. SpaceX cannot afford to take too many launches to get V3 solid. If 2026 is another 2025 (3 V2 failures in a row followed by 2 V3 successes), then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030.

My hope is that Flight 12 goes nearly flawlessly (at least gets to soft splashdown) and they can start testing in-space refueling in July/August.

If they can demonstrate in-space refueling by the end of 2026, then they have a shot at a lunar-landing demo in 2027 and a crewed-landing in 2028. But a lot has to go right for that to happen. Here's hoping it does.

john_minsk• 2 months ago

question: what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit?

JumpCrisscross• 2 months ago

what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit?

No. What is the mechanism through which you suspected this could happen?

bediger40002• 2 months ago

Liquid handling in microgravity has always been weird. Big gas bubbles in the fluid, surface tension effects causing liquid to float in balls in the ullage, stuff like that. Turbopumps break if they ingest a larger bubble.

There could be some odd failure modes I would think. Failure to pump the liquid, broken pumps, who really knows? My guess would be that a failure mode would be a big spill, a failure to pump, only partially refilling, or broken turbopumps before an explosion.

Lerc• 2 months ago

Presumably the effect of any explosion would decrease proportional to the volume as it expands. Is there much volume in space?

tristanj3• 2 months ago

All Starship test launches are suborbital so if anything goes wrong, the ship and debris fall back to Earth.

Even if it was put in orbit, debris are not an issue because orbital decay at Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is significant. A satellite orbiting below 250km will fall back to earth within a few hours, and at 400km within a year. LEO below 500-600km has enough atmospheric drag to be self-cleaning.

Orbital debris are more significant issue at higher orbits 800km and above.

NitpickLawyer• 2 months ago

then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030.

A crewed Moon landing before 30 is really implausible. Everyone is late, but the latest NASA OIG report put the Axiom suits very late (somewhere ~2031 if everything holds, but it notes it might not hold).

russdill2• 2 months ago

Small edit, 2 V2 (not V3) successes (flights 10 and 11).

GMoromisato6• 2 months ago

Thank you! [Wish I could edit, but for some reason I can't, or I can't see the link to edit.]

stephc_int13• 2 months ago

I am pretty sure that at least some SpaceX engineers are reading HackerNews.

But I don't think I ever seen any insiders comments here, even anonymously.

helterskelter• 2 months ago

I assume they'd be covered by a ludicrous NDA.

brynnbee• 2 months ago

Were any of them actually failures? My understanding is they push limits and create intentional weak points to see where it fails, and something failing isn't a mission failure but rather part of the research process.

GMoromisato6• 2 months ago

The goals of the V2 flights were to test the improved heat shield and to test satellite deployment. The first three V2 flights did not make it far enough to test either of those goals. It wasn't until Flight 10 that they could actually test that, and that was 9 months later.

Effectively, SpaceX lost 9 months due to problems with V2.

Sure, one could argue that it's still research (no customer was affected), and there was no way to know V2 would fail until it was tested.

But watching the stream, it was clear that the SpaceX team was very disappointed with the outcome. I remember watching Flight 1, which nearly destroyed the launch pad and didn't make it to SECO, but still SpaceX was ecstatic with the results.

2025 was supposed to be the year SpaceX tested in-space refueling. The V2 failures delayed that, and whether or not a different company could have done better (my guess is no), SpaceX still felt like they failed.

dlcarrier• 2 months ago

It has a new engine design. If it can make it only a minute into launch, it'll provide a lot of useful data.

laughing_man• 2 months ago

SpaceX cannot afford to take too many launches to get V3 solid.

Why do you say that? I'm sure they'd love to have everything go right, but I doubt they're going to go out of business if it doesn't.

GMoromisato6• 2 months ago

That's a fair point. I'm just projecting my own hopes. If it takes them too long to get V3 reliable they will not be able to land on the moon by 2028. I don't think SpaceX wants to feel responsible for China beating the US to the moon.

dreamcompiler• 2 months ago

There's not going to be a moon landing any time soon, regardless. Nobody knows how to do in-space refueling; it's a research project. And they're damn well not going to do it a dozen times in the next year.

Furthermore they don't have a lander. Landing on the moon is hard. So hard that almost everybody who tries it fails, especially if the lander is top-heavy. And the SpaceX lander idea is very top-heavy.

Finally, the NASA budget has been hollowed out. Even if the two big show stoppers above were easy, the lack of money would stop the project.

stinkbeetle2• 2 months ago

I suspect Space X has a pretty strong inkling about how to do in-space refueling. They know how to dock in orbit, they have conducted internal propellant transfer tests, they know how to offload payload from ship in orbit and keep control of it, they know how to make autonomous quick connect/disconnect couplings for propellant transfer.

They haven't strung everything together yet and it's clearly much more complex than that. Still, pieces are coming together. Why couldn't they do it a dozen times in the next year? They could have an orbital ship launched in Q3 (flight 14), test a tanker and refueling in Q4, and start fueling in the next 3 months.

That implies all the test flights go well which is a pretty long shot, but not out of the realm of possibility. Although I think it will ship reuse that will be the problem keeping them from that within a year, rather than in-orbit refueling which I suspect won't take them more than a couple of tries to get right. Reentry still looks like a beast of a problem. It's one thing to have enough of your vehicle hanging together to land it, quite another thing again to have it back in a condition you'd be able to start fueling it up again ready for the next launch and reentry to do it all again, even in days or weeks instead of hours like Space X are aiming for.

lysace2• 2 months ago

They have really invested focus in creating mass market content lately - like, actually having someone spend some time creating the text on this page. Didn't really see that earlier.

And a number of long form videos (like "Test Like You Fly").

IPO time: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4pe2953q1o and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48213933 (in the last few hours)

ericcumbee3• 2 months ago

they Typically put out a hype video before each flight at least the last several.

7e• 2 months ago

Wake me up for the launch of the v7 engines. SpaceX is like an incompetent AI agent, blundering their way to convergence, one painful launch at a time.

gcanyon2• 2 months ago

Sergei Korolev's ghost is looking at those 33 raptor engines and crying.

philistine• 2 months ago

Because his ideas for the N1 were not good.

The engine was designed to fire once, so they couldn’t test every engine. They tested samples in batches, to the terrible results of the N1 rocket.

Every engine at SpaceX is thoroughly vetted.

gcanyon2• 2 months ago

Korolev built the N1 in a cave, with a box of scraps. In the '60s.

staplung• 2 months ago

I wonder what's holding them back from attempting to land...on land (as opposed to another splashdown in the ocean). They must have their reasons but there have got to be engineers dying to get their hands on a returned vehicle to see exactly how the tiles held up and if there's any other damage that doesn't show up so easily on the video feed.

iknowstuff• 2 months ago

No legs. Gotta verify the vehicle can land with the precision necessary for a tower catch

mattas• 2 months ago

Will be interesting to see how the market reacts in real-time to flight tests going forward post-IPO. Usually big events (either good or bad) are announced pre- or post-market but launch windows don't care about market hours.

stinkbeetle2• 2 months ago

The new rocket engines mounted up to the first stage look like this:

https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/B4150BF393BC9/media%2FHIyEI...

What is incredible is that rocket engines traditionally looked like this:

https://www.l3harris.com/sites/default/files/styles/896_x_50...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SXEOVufxOyY/sddefault.jpg

These new Space X engines look so minimalist that the CEO of another orbital rocket company mistook them for being incomplete. This is despite them being the most technologically advanced rocket engines ever made.

It's probably not that other companies necessarily would be incapable of doing similar (previous iterations of this same Space X engine architecture looked similar to the "traditional" engine category). But I think the cost structure for other rocket engines never supported a significant push to optimize for manufacturing and unit costs, hard tooling, cost optimization, etc.

cogogo• 2 months ago

Jarring to see the Gulf of America in print.

metalman• 2 months ago

There is a rather large storm over south Texas, so not likely to launch today unless it blows through quickly

https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/goes/abi/goesEastfullDiskband13...

everyone• 2 months ago

I am a big space and tech fan, I have a crazy amount of hours in KSP and realism overhaul. I used to follow starship very closely, finally a rocket that's actually better than Saturn 5!

But I cant separate space-x from elon. He is, for want of a better word, evil; supporting trump, supporting extreme right party in Germany, DOGE illegally and irresponsibly causing chaos, flouting the law at every turn. He is a tech-fascist. If we want democracy and egality its imperative that people like him are stopped.

I want everything elon does to fail more than I want starship to succeed. It's fine, the rocket tech genie is out of the bottle now, someone else will make a good rocket.

Starship's Twelfth Flight Test

Related Stories