The footage, which you can see here, comes as the launch company doubled down on the blast-off’s success despite failing after eight minutes.
“While it didn’t happen in a lab or on a test stand, it was absolutely a test,” said SpaceX.
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“What we did with this second flight will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship.”
Starship is the collective name for the SpaceX Super Heavy booster rocket and Starship spacecraft destined to fly humans to Mars one day.
Its first launch in April failed to reach orbit but surpassed expectations by crucially passing through Max Q, the period in which the spacecraft endures maximum dynamic pressure.
A second attempt, earlier this month, went one better with a successful first-stage separation and all of its Raptor engines firing as planned. However, it ultimately failed when it reached an altitude of 91 miles.
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According to SpaceX, a perfect launch would have seen Starship fly for 90 minutes and hit an altitude of 150 miles.
“On November 18, 2023, Starship successfully lifted off at 7:02am CT from Starbase in Texas and achieved a number of major milestones, including all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster starting up successfully and, for the first time, completed a full-duration burn during ascent,” said SpaceX.
“This 360-degree view comes from the top of the launch tower at Starbase in Texas, providing a front-row seat to watch lift-off of the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed.”
Chief executive officer Elon Musk previously said on social media that there are “three ships in final production”, suggesting more tests could be imminent.
There’s little detail over what caused the second blast-off failure, with SpaceX only stating the vehicle suffered a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
Starship’s first launch failed when a few of its Super Heavy rocket’s Raptor engines burnt out, and the booster didn’t correctly separate from the spacecraft.
It meant the two vehicles, still attached, entered a death spiral.
Other problems with the blast-off saw damage to the concrete launch pad at Boca Chica, with debris reportedly thrown as far as the town of Port Isabel 10 kilometres away.
In a Twitter Spaces post-mortem, the SpaceX founder said the launch had “slightly exceeded” expectations and downplayed the risks from the debris cloud.
That launch beat NASA’s record of the world’s most powerful rocket to go into operation as it reached an altitude of 39 kilometres over the Gulf of Mexico.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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