SpaceX launches its 10th test flight of Starship spacecraft

Power and telemetry nominal. Getting good callouts, healthy systems on the booster as it starts to pitch over, over the gulf. Alright, we're a little over one minute into flight, about to pack through max Q. Max Q. Alright, so we are through the period of maximum dynamic pressure, max stress on the vehicle as it continues to fly. Our next major event is going to be hot staging, which is happening in just over 90 seconds from now. To get ready, the booster will shut down all but three of its Raptor engines. The clamps holding the two stages together will release, and the Starship second stage ignites its engines. The ship then separates from the super heavy booster and heads to space. At the same time, the three engines still firing on super heavy will flip the booster around. Ten more engines will ignite for the boost back burn, putting the first stage on the path for splashdown in the gulf. As we mentioned earlier, the hot stage will be jettisoned for this flight, and that should occur just after the boost back burn. So we're about to shut down the first stage and perform hot staging, so let's just watch and listen. So Mike, as we're talking about... Alright, see the engines start to throttle down. As we're talking about Starship, we're just listening as well. We're waiting for the second booster phase. Explain to our viewers what happens in that second booster phase. So this is pretty critical. It's when the big booster has taken it up pretty high, getting it to space. Which was majestic. It was beautiful. It was unbelievable, yeah. And so now that engine shut down. And here it is. Yeah, now the Starship is going to separate and go on its way, and then that big booster is going to come back. So this is a critical moment here to make sure that that separation happens, and then they light that engine on the ship. It takes a while for that booster to start? Yeah, a couple seconds. Not too long. So we should see it coming up here. Raptor's lit up on ship. We're going to listen in. You heard them report ship chamber pressure's nominal. So that chamber pressure, just that expected thrust level in those Raptor engines on the ship. Three vacuum optimized, three sea level, all looking good. Mike, all the cameras that we're seeing here, this is what SpaceX is looking at as well, right? They're also studying these? Yeah, it's interesting. If you remember back in the shuttle days when we had an accident, we started loading a lot of cameras on the vehicle. And they're used for analysis. They're used for engineering. And so the technology advancements we've had in cameras over the years, Tom, has really helped us in checking things and making sure things are going well and analyzing afterwards. Speaking of things going well, so far, Mike, it looks like things are going well for this launch. Yeah. So far, so good. Headed towards the Gulf. It's not going to be quite as aggressive of a flight down. We relaxed that angle of attack a little bit. But we are then going to be looking for it to do its engine tests for the landing burn. And those are going to be a little unique this time. Yeah, typically we start with all 13 center, inner engines lit for that landing burn and bring that down to just the center three. But one of our test objectives for today is to simulate what an engine out situation would look like. So we're going to be intentionally turning off one of those center three and instead lighting one of the engines from the middle 10 ring. Yeah, Mike, go for it. Do you want to translate this for us? Yeah. So what we're seeing is we're seeing basically now we're looking at we're going to be having two spacecraft. One is coming back. The booster is going to come back. And that's where they ran into trouble the last couple launches. But it's almost on purpose. It really is. This is a test flight. So they're kind of pushing the boundaries of what the vehicle can do. And so they mentioned there they're going to be using a slightly different, not as aggressive angle of attack on the entry. They did a pretty aggressive one at its limit last time, and that's when they lost the booster, but they learned a lot. So now they're going to slightly decrease that angle, and we'll see if the booster can make it back down to the earth. The booster comes down into the gulf. Correct. It's supposed to fall down into the gulf. That's right. But the rocket will not. No, the ship, the top part of the ship. Right, that's going to keep going, and it's got its whole test plan where it's going to deploy those satellites Tom mentioned. And they're going to do a reentry burn and try to enter that vehicle successfully over the Indian Ocean. Tom, I want to bring you in here as we watch this. You know, it never gets old to kind of see the technology and to see what man is capable of. And in this case, you know, private space companies like SpaceX and what they're trying to do. Listen, I don't, you know, they've had their issues this year, as we know, right? They've either lost the rocket or the Starship on four separate occasions this year. One of them was a ground test back in May. But never count this company out. They have a record of excellence and always pushing the engineering envelope. 33 Raptor engines were on the bottom of that super booster that you saw, and I noticed every one of them was firing perfectly in sync as it lifted off. That's critical. Six engines are on the bottom of Starship as it heads into space. Six minutes, 26 seconds now. This is at about the moment when we have the super heavy landing burn shut down as it approaches the water. And then separately, we're going to be watching very closely as Starship itself, again, that's the top, what would be the compartment for astronauts one day, it continues on into a suborbital orbit. And you're looking at the Gulf of Mexico right now as we see splashdown. Here we go. And the booster has splashed down. Tom, the booster there, we saw it sort of light up a little bit, it lit the Gulf and we saw the currents. Was that to slow it down? Exactly. And I just want to reiterate, you know, SpaceX has a history and they've virtually trademarked this action where they bring back their booster rocket back down to the pad, right? We've seen that for the missions that go to the space station. In this case, though, they have brought the same type of booster down and then it's grabbed by chopsticks, if you will, at the pad in South Texas. That was not the intention today. Intentionally, they wanted to try a special maneuver. How could they try to move that booster around as it descends in the event? They want to come up with scenarios. How do they respond in the event they have a malfunction? So this was planned, kind of giving it a flip, slowing it down and putting it down into the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America. So it went beautifully. And now we're coming up on T-plus, eight minutes or so, and we're going to be watching at 857 when Starship's engine cuts off in space. We're about a minute away from that happening, Mike. As you watch this right now, we can see the Starship. Is it correct to say the capsule, or are we still talking about the rocket here? I wouldn't call that a capsule. I would call it the ship. The vehicle of SpaceX is calling it. The vehicle is up there now orbiting our beautiful planet here. Hard to make out what this camera angle is showing, but we know that the arc of the rocket was headed towards the Indian Ocean. Correct. Yeah, so that's the direction they launched. And the plan is about 45 minutes from the launch, from when they launched, 45 minutes into the flight, that's when they're going to start reentering into the Earth's atmosphere, firing some engines, doing the deploy of those satellites first. So that's where some action is going to take place. And, Tom, you can jump in here. It is important for Elon Musk, of course, to get those Starlink satellites into space. It is a major moneymaker for Elon Musk and SpaceX. Well, that's the hope, Tom. They've got contracts with NASA and, of course, their dream. Can I just say we're shutting down the engines now in space on Starship. So now you're looking at the view from space as they shut down the engines. The booster rocket has already come back to Earth. It's in the Gulf. And now we've got Starship that's beginning this suborbital flight. The next big move will be at 1828. So T-plus 1828 when they deploy the payload of dummy satellites. But to your point, yes, listen, this is NASA. As it relates to the whole SpaceX and NASA relationship, right, NASA needs SpaceX. All of their plans, going to the moon, maybe someday going to Mars, they are dependent on SpaceX. And they are dependent on this particular rocket, Starship. Let me just give you a sense of how big this thing is, right. As I mentioned, 16 million pounds of thrust. And that is more than, much more than the Saturn V rocket that lifted Apollo astronauts to the moon. This is a monster rocket. And it needs to be so. Now, Mike teaches all this stuff at the university level. But it needs to be so to break through the Earth's gravitational pull and then be able to go on carrying a much heavier load. Yeah, Mike, when you are in a vehicle like this, when you were in space like this, and you're rounding Earth like this, just looking at it, you can get a little dizzy. When you're inside and you're seeing this, what's going through your head? When you take a look out the window? Well, number one, if you've had an engine cut off like they just had, you're in space and you've made it. So that's a good sign. And then the view of the planet is just glorious. It's like looking into heaven. It's hard to describe in words, except that we're living in a paradise. And when you see it from that vantage point, yeah, I think you see it in its true beauty. And that's what we're able to see with these cameras. We're going into night now, so it's going to be getting dark out there. But it's just an incredible view. There are a lot of steps still tonight that Tom has laid out for us. But so far, this has been a success for SpaceX, which has been in the news a lot because of what had not happened, but also because their founder, Elon Musk, was busy working with President Trump, working with Doge, and people were concerned he had gotten his eye off the ball. But we saw him there yesterday. We assume he's there today. I'm sure Tom would know better than we do. But so far, so good for SpaceX tonight. Yeah, and they've got a good team there. Bill Gerstenmaier is their head of operations. He used to do that for NASA. He's a good friend. He's a great guy. They've got a lot of very competent people there. They've got a great team, great company, and doing some really exciting things. We thank you for watching. And remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.