SpaceX Starship Flight Test 12 ends with a bang

We've made extensive upgrades across every single system

Start with the big picture because Starship still very, very big. Just over 407 feet tall, fully stacked, a little bit taller than version two

With that extra stretch, we can carry even more propellant, but big rocket

The bottom half is our super heavy booster, and there are some pretty visible structural changes on the outside

We'll jump in. You've got version 3 on the left there, version 2 on the right at the very top

We've changed from a one-time-use hot stage adapter that used to pop off

to one that's fully integrated for reusability. And Starship's Raptors are actually going to be igniting directly on top of the booster's fuel tank

The fuel tank pressure itself and then a non-structural layer of steel

it's what's protecting the top of that booster when we do hot stage separation

Moving down a little bit, we went from four grid fins to three. We made them 50% bigger and higher strength

Just a reminder, that's what Booster is using to kind of steer itself as it's flying back for a catch

We're also now going to use those grid fins for lift and catch itself

We zoom in a little bit, and you can see new catch points now on those grid fin structures

Moving inside the rocket, we redesigned the fuel transfer tube. This is the really big tube inside the rocket that's moving all of that liquid methane down to the Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines

It's going to help us flip faster, and we can now start up all of the engines simultaneously

This thing is big. It's about the size of a Falcon 9 first stage, which gives us the fun realization that we kind of put a rocket inside of our rocket

The very bottom of the booster looks very different. You've got those new Raptor 3 engines that enabled us to delete the bulky heat shields, the engine shrouds that we had on the previous generation

And then all of the propulsion avionics hardware for those engines are super tightly integrated now and protected by much slimmer shielding

Move on up, second stage. This version of Starship is designed to carry massive orbital payloads

We're talking up to 100 metric tons to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars

The biggest changes are pretty much all under the hood. We gave the propulsion system a clean sheet redesign

increased the propellant tank volume, and improved our reaction control system, our steering, while we're on orbit

When we X-ray inside, the PEZ dispenser is now supercharged, a little bit of turbo

and that's going to allow us to increase the deploy speed for each of those satellites

Today, we're actually flying the heaviest payload we've ever carried on Starship, but eventually we're going to launch with up to 60 of those Starlink V3 satellites

Just below that, just below the payload bay, and also down on the aft part of the ship, we've added new docking ports

That going to enable us to link up in orbit between two starships do propellant transfer We also modified that main connection point where we load propellants into the vehicle for those future prop transfer missions Five four three ignition

Pitching downrange. Booster Raptor, chamber pressure nominal

Alright, we are T plus 30 seconds into flight. See a 33 out of 33 Raptor 3 engines on Booster V3

Ascending over the Gulf now, coming up on maximum aerodynamic pressure. Booster in ship, avionics power, telemetry nominal

Systems looking good. We're just passing through the period of maximum dynamic pressure

A little over a minute into flight now. Vibrations chilling out here at Star Factory as we continue to watch Starship Flight 12 arc out over the Gulf

The next major thing coming up is going to be hot staging. Booster props

Reminder, we do what's our version of MECO. Most engines cut off, so we're going to shut down all but five of the Raptor engines on the booster

And then after that happens, we're going to ignite the six engines on ship while it is still attached

We have clamps that hold the two together. Those are going to retract inside of that hot stage ring, kind of protect them

Looks like we had one of the engines go out, still flying on 32 of the Raptor engines

But again, once we get the hot staging, those six engines on the ship are going to ignite

We're going to do it in a little bit different of a sequence on version 3

Essentially, those three RVAC engines will ignite first. Almost immediately after, just one of those central engines is going to ignite

and that's going to give the booster a bit of a kick, sending it in a known direction

followed shortly after by the other two. We're through Miko. Separation

There you go. Successful hot staging separation. We are not seeing as many booster engines ignite as we expected for boostback but we are seeing six good engines lit on ship

It looks like we just had an early boostback shutdown. Again, a reminder, the booster was planned to essentially head into the Gulf for a splashdown, but it has shut its engines down early on into boostback

And we just see one of the RVACs, so we're now running on five engines on ship

We do have engine out capabilities, so it's going to continue into its ascent

You got booster on the left there, ship on the right. Ship avionics power and telemetry nominal

planning on bringing the booster back for this flight as this was the very first time

All right, so about three minutes, 50 seconds into today's flight. Just a reminder, the ship planned to burn its engines for about eight minutes and change

about 8 minutes and 11 seconds was our planned timeline for today

That could shift slightly as we do have one engine out running on one fewer RVACs

Again, continuing to watch. So booster did not complete its boost back burn

We would not see all of the engines ignite. That we expected

are continuing to get some views from it, though. That's going to make a splashdown somewhere in the Gulf

Reminder, we clear air, sea space, everything for these launches. We have views here from the booster coming back down

making its way into the Gulf. Pretty cool to see. We have healthy chamber pressures on five out of six shipwreptor engines

Great news there for Starship. Once again, we were not going to bring the super heavy booster back to the tower

We were planning on having it land in the Gulf. And it looks like the booster ended its mission there in the Gulf

but we've got a ship still flying. Great to see that. Still have five out of six engines there on S39

And the camera is going to attempt to look back and image Starship's heat shield

as it flies slowly away from the vehicle. And there it goes Let there be light

Yeah, it almost looks like the light is just shining right at us there. If you couldn't tell, we're pretty excited

Yeah. It is always sunny in space. Always sunny in space. and that looks like an empty payload bay

Sure does. That's exactly what you want to see there. That's great. So, yeah, with payload deploy complete

oh, you can see the door closing there. All right. There we go

So, yeah, with payload deploy complete, Starship will now close. And this is a view from one of those satellites

As we deployed, it looks like this was from the last one out. Flashlight turning on

taking a look at Starship in space. The way this system is set up is the satellites are essentially recording it

and making contact with our Starlink constellation and then transferring that video back down to us on the ground

That's a Starship in space. So aside from just being really cool

This was our test to try and develop a free flyer that we could fire outside of Starship's payload bay

look back at it, and then do essentially a pirouette with Starship to get a look at the heat shield

It's going to be really important when we start bringing these things back for a catch

which we are hopefully doing in the not-too-distant future, as they are intended to be fully reusable

but this will give us an opportunity to look at the heat shield while Starship is still in space

The ship is re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. This is the plasma starting to build up on the exterior of the vehicle

Now we do not plan to recover the spacecraft today but rapid and reliable reusability is the ultimate goal

Passing. Landing burn start up. Landing burn start up. Two engines lit

Amazing