Launch Roundup: Starship flies, booster caught

by John Sharp

SpaceX flew the Starship-Super Heavy on Sunday, Oct. 13. This was the fifth test flight of the full Starship-Super Heavy stack and the first attempt at catching the booster.

On Friday, Oct. 11, SpaceX Falcon 9 missions were released from the hold imposed on them while an investigation into the anomaly with the second stage of the Crew-9 mission was completed. The stage landed outside of the designated zone following re-entry on Sept. 28. While not affected by this investigation, the NASA-licensed Europa Clipper flight faced delays because its launch site was under a Hurricane Alert as Hurricane Milton passed over Florida on Wednesday. The mission launched successfully on Monday, Oct. 14.

Blue Origin attempts to launch the first flight of a new human-rated vehicle. On the other side of the world, China has launched one rocket to date.

CASC Chang Zheng 3B | Unknown Payload

A Chang Zheng (Long March) 3B/E launched from LC-2 at Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China, on Thursday, Oct. 10, at 13:50 UTC. Chang Zheng 3/E is a three-stage vehicle with a total height of 52.52 meters. This mission’s payload is strongly rumored to be the Weixing Hulianwang Gaogui 03 satellite.

All flight paths from this inland launch center take vehicles over land and these rockets have been filmed dropping spent stages on populated areas after recent launches.

SpaceX Starship-Super Heavy | Flight Five

SpaceX launched Starship’s fifth flight test and its first attempt at catching a Super Heavy booster on Sunday, Oct. 13, at 7:25 AM CDT (12:25 UTC). The lift-off time was five minutes before the end of a 30-minute window.

The booster returned to its launch site and was successfully caught by the chopsticks. Starship followed a similar trajectory to the fourth test flight and achieved an on-target splash down in the Indian Ocean.

The Starship-Super Heavy hardware was restacked over Saturday night and Sunday morning Oct. 5 and 6, at Starbase Pad A in Boca Chica. With the full stack on the launchpad, SpaceX performed a partial tanking test on Oct. 7. Flight Termination Systems (FTS) were observed being installed on both ship and booster on Wednesday.

Ship 30 was stacked atop booster 12 early on Friday, Oct. 11. This is likely to be the final stacking before the launch attempt on Sunday.

The final requirement before the flight, the launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), was granted on Saturday, Oct. 12. The license also allows for a flight six.

Full coverage of the launch and landing may be found in this article by Ryan Weber for NSF.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy | Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper, the NASA mission to investigate the Jovian moon Europa has a finite launch window from Oct. 10 to Nov. 6, 2024. SpaceX was planning to launch the probe at the earliest opportunity of 12:31 EDT (16:31 UTC) on Oct. 10, however, the company has postponed the mission to outwait Hurricane Milton. Meanwhile, the probe and its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle have been secured in SpaceX’s hangar.

SpaceX succeeded in launching on Monday, Oct. 14, at 12:06 PM EDT (16:06 UTC). A detailed article with full coverage of this mission by Haygen Warren for NSF is available here.

The launch is a major task, even for a Falcon Heavy in fully expendable mode. Massing at 6,065 kg, the Europa Clipper payload is one of the heaviest interplanetary probes ever launched. The payload was placed in a heliocentric orbit.

On its five-and-a-half-year journey to Jupiter, Europa Clipper will fly by Mars and Earth to make gravity-assisted changes to its trajectory. When the spacecraft reaches Jupiter, it will enter an orbit that brings the probe close to Europa, enabling it to conduct a wide range of experiments and provide imagery of the moon.

The Falcon Heavy has been optimized for this flight, with the center-core booster, B1089, on its first and only flight, and the two side boosters B1064 and B1065 both flying their sixth and final flight. Being expended on this flight, the side boosters have been stripped of their landing legs, grid fins, and landing-related hardware.

The two side boosters for the Falcon Heavy separated after their burn and fell into the ocean some 775 km downrange. This is substantially farther than the booster landing site of a regular Falcon 9 Starlink mission, which usually is approximately 640 km downrange. After the side cores had been expended, the Falcon Heavy center core continued its burn, before also falling into the ocean 1,960 km downrange. These additional distances reflect the large increase in energy being expended by the boosters to deliver this heavy payload into its target orbit.

The two side boosters have always flown as a pair, previously flying USSF-44, USSF-67, EchoStar 24 (Jupiter 3), Psyche, and USSF-52 (OTV-7). Their first flight was USSF-44 on Nov. 1, 2022.

Europa Clipper was completed by Sept. 21 and encapsulated by the fairings atop the payload adapter that fits into the Falcon Heavy upper stage, on Oct. 4.

After launch, the second stage coasted for a while before firing its vacuum-optimized Merlin engine for a second time to send Europa Clipper on its path toward Jupiter and Europa. The problem separated successfully and teams reported the acquisition of telemetry and that the initial post-launch activities were underway.

(Lead image: Booster 12 igniting 13 of its engines for the landing burn.  Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

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