SpaceX has completed its first (mostly) successful Starship test. The ship was able to reach orbit, deploy 26 Starlink satellites, and return home. And while there were some hiccups (engine failure on launch and reentry, as well as a crash landing) along the way, this was a step in the right direction.
Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado. It’s crappy outside, so we’re doing this one inside. It is the 28th of September. You’re going to be seeing this on the 29th. And the news today is that we’ve had our first mostly successful test of SpaceX’s new ship, the Starship. The intent is for the Starship to be the most powerful rocket ever launched by man. That will be able to take upwards of 60 satellites for the Starlink constellation up with every individual flight. Elon Musk, who, of course, is the the guy behind this, eventually intends to do one launch a day with most of the components being assembled on site in Boca Chica at their Starbase.
Anyway, what happened today is it went up and had engine failure on the way up, and it had engine failures on reentry. And because of the engine failures, they cut the trip short only did two orbits. So it came down less than three hours after takeoff instead of the 8 to 9 hours. That was the original plan. That doesn’t mean it’s an overall failure, because it’s still launched the satellites, and this is the first time that a Starship has actually achieved orbit. But this is a step in the direction that they need to go. This is not a proof of success because they had, I think it was three engines failing the way up and two on the way down with engine failures that they thought they had solved already. They have to, I don’t want to say go back to the drawing board, but they have to completely reiterate and modify all of the engines moving forward. So it’s probably going to be at least a couple of months before we get another meaningful test. In addition, because they didn’t get a lot of data, they don’t know about the reusability problem that they’re trying to solve. The intent is for these things to be launched from Boca Chica, to do their orbits, to drop off their satellites and then land in Boca Chica. Without having meaningful data for how long the Starship can be in orbit. They just don’t know how to proceed with that at the moment. And then finally, this was a partial test of cargo. They only launched, I think it was 28 satellites. Their intent ultimately is to do over 60 per individual launch, which is a lot. Anyway, so moderate step in the right direction. Still a lot of work to be done.
One more thing. It blew up when they landed it in the ocean. It blew up, which is normal because they weren’t actually trying to recover it. So don’t take that as a negative. Too much of a negative.
