SN15 Sticks the Landing

Finally, after countless prototypes blew upon landing, Starship was finally able to land a starship prototype: SN15. SN15 took off from the Boca Chica Launch Site today at 3:24 p.m. EST. The vehicle reached a maximum altitude of 6.2 miles, performed its flipping maneuvers to simulate reentry maneuvers, and safely landed back at the Boca Chica Launch Site. In total, the launch took 6 minutes.

SN15 Upon Landing

This achievement is amazing for SpaceX, as the last 4 Starship prototypes weren’t able to land successfully. The one exception was SN10, which actually landed. However, it blew up seven minutes after landing and SpaceX deemed the launch a failure. This didn’t happen for SN15. In the case of SN15, there was a small fire at the base of SN15, but it was quickly extinguished. The Starship model is still fully intact which is a surprising first.

SN15 During Flight

While SN15 looks very similar to previous models of Starship prototypes, there are some improvements that led to SN15’s successful landing. Some improvements were made across structures, avionics, and software. Other changes were made to the engines. SpaceX was able to have the engines have more speed and efficiency. This is mostly because of its new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellent, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration.

SN15 Performing Landing Burn

SpaceX’s final product will be Starship, which I have talked about before but I will recap it. Starship will take people and payloads to the Moon, and eventually Mars. Starship will also be able to fly below the atmosphere, like a flight from New York to London. Starship is made up of two components: the spaceship called Starship and the rocket known as Super Heavy. The final version of Starship will be powered by six Raptor engines. The Super Heavy will use 30 Raptor engines. This is because Starship will need enough power to launch itself from the Moon and Mars. SpaceX and Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, hope that Starship will be flying people by 2023. It in fact already has a contract for a lunar landing scheduled for that year with NASA.

Since SN15 is a full-scale prototype in terms of its height and width. However, it only features 3 Raptor engines. Future Starship prototypes will be more powerful, heavier, and have more Raptor engines. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that SpaceX hopes to launch a Starship in Earth’s orbit this year. That, however, depends on how well future tests work out. Starship will be the future of spaceflight, and we are getting closer to that mark with every passing test.

Render of Starship HLS on the Moon During Artemis Program

Sources:

Pradhan, Arnav. SN11 Misses the Mark ... and the Launchpad, Blogger, 31 Mar. 2021, www.theaceofspace.org/2021/03/sn11-misses-mark-and-launchpad.html. 

Wall, Mike. “SpaceX Launches Starship SN15 Rocket and Sticks the Landing in High-Altitude Test Flight.” Space.com, Space, 5 May 2021, www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn15-launch-landing-success.