T minus 2 minutes

[Darkwind]

Starship is about to launch for a 4th flight in a few minutes. Payload is data and an attempt to get the starship through reentry.

 

[martybegan]

Starship is about to launch for a 4th flight in a few minutes. Payload is data and an attempt to get the starship through reentry.

So far so good. Better than the last flight.

SpaceX

 

[martybegan]

Aaand the landing flaps are starting to break up due to re-entry heat. Still getting signal.

But the camera lens is covered with debris.

 

[martybegan]

Well it looks like it "landed". Not as controlled as they wanted, but still semi-controlled.

So for the first time they got Data for the entire sequence. Not bad.

 

[lg325]

What a ride ! Exciting live coverage glad it came out well. Watching it tip back and forth was a tense moment for me.

 

[martybegan]

What a ride ! Exciting live coverage glad it came out well. Watching it tip back and forth was a tense moment for me.

The fact the camera survived the whole flight is also impressive considering the shit that was hitting it.

 

[theHawk]

Pretty insane to see a re-entry all the way through like that from the outside of the craft itself.

They intentionally left off some heat shield panels to test if the craft could survive. It looks like it did, despite one of the flaps almost melting off.

 

[martybegan]

Pretty insane to see a re-entry all the way through like that from the outside of the craft itself.

They intentionally left off some heat shield panels to test if the craft could survive. It looks like it did, despite one of the flaps almost melting off.

The removed shields were in areas seeing the least amount of heat.

The flap damage was to a very protected area, so they gotta look into that.

Still SpaceX has kept up their pattern of improvement on every launch.