SpaceX Starship's 'monumental' test flight, explained | About That

SpaceX's Starship rocket launched farther and faster than ever before during its third test flight. About That producer Lauren Bird breaks down the milestones from the launch, and why, despite being lost before re-entry, many say this was SpaceX's most successful launch yet.
CORRECTION (March 15, 2024): A previous version of this video incorrectly identified an image at 3:18 as a Starlink satellite. In fact, that image was of the Tiangong-1, a Chinese space station. The video has been edited to remove that image.
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For more than 80 years, CBC News has been the source Canadians turn to, to keep them informed about their communities, their country and their world. Through regional and national programming on multiple platforms, including CBC Television, CBC News Network, CBC Radio, CBCNews.ca, mobile and on-demand, CBC News and its internationally recognized team of award-winning journalists deliver the breaking stories, the issues, the analyses and the personalities that matter to Canadians.

[@DraftedByTheMan]

This was an excellent recap, unlike other news outlets that don’t bother asking real scientists to analyze the results.

[@RaXXha]

Everyone else is like "Elon Musks giant rocket took off and later crashed", omitting all the milestones they achieved inbetween. 🤣

[@DraftedByTheMan]

@@RaXXha exactly. Too accurate. I saw 4 or 5 headlines like that first 🙄

[@Caesar316]

​@@jpw5820Elon has no rocket building experience. The engineers he hires have experience. Elon is just a business man.

[@ooolll8902]

​@@Caesar316 this is another lie

[@alexlabs4858]

Thank you for reporting honestly on this and not just saying “SpaceX rocket blows up again” like other media companies trying to push a narrative

[@jogreeen]

it blew up again. 😂🤣

[@ecbftl]

Well it did, but this is CBC, who tend to do pretty good journalism.

[@stratolestele7611]

​@@jogreeen no explosions. They burned up.

[@wisemanofsorts6068]

@jogreeen After it had completed everything needed for a non reusable rocket. It essentially is operational now as a traditional rocket. What they have to practice now is the reusable part.

[@GoldenTV3]

6:33 It wasn't the tiles, the craft was spinning out of control and the majority of the descent the tiles weren't even facing downwards. Other than that, great video, actually covered the topic way more in depth than other news agencies did. Congrats.

[@spacesweedkid27]

True

[@snuffeldjuret]

I have to say it again. This video was ridiculously good. Praying to the yt-algorithm gods for it to gain more traction :).

[@snuffeldjuret]

4:42 absolutely love the production quality of this video and the technical details accuracy, but it was kind of cute how intentionally or not the video sort of insinuated that the rocket went the wrong direction to the Indian ocean :).

[@GreenPartyHat]

I noticed that too lol.

[@gnarlyandy1]

That is so great haha :)

[@SukacitaYeremia]

Heh he he... Yeah, that got a good chuckle out of me

[@cbdude]

this take is absolutely incorrect. Indian Ocean splashdown was always the intention. typical clapping seals the bloody lot of you...

[@DraftedByTheMan]

Lazy editing. They just used Google Maps to show landing zone rather than use the actual flight path

[@adrianmoisa2281]

Congrats to SpaceX, but even more importantly, congrats to CBC for not being professional naysayers. I praise the report for being impartial, presenting in balance amount both the achievements and the failures of this mission. Wish more media would have the same approach.

[@danielwhyatt3278]

The third launch was absolutely incredible. Blew me away on so many levels as they made it past one stage after another. I can’t wait to see how far they will get next time. I’m sure they will stick the water landing on the fourth attempt.😁👏🏻

[@phillipsaw]

Apart from the 'short cut' to the Indian Ocean, the only other view expressed that was probably wrong is that the heat shield tiles failed. It seems pretty clear that the RCS failed to orientate the ship correctly so that the tiles could do their work. Unprotected parts of the ship were exposed to the plasma which would have caused structural failure before the thicker parts of the atmosphere were reached which would have allowed the flaps to do their job.

[@ecbftl]

The ship was rolling and pitching, leading into and during re-entry, causing parts of the ship without heat shield tiles to be exposed to plasma, likely leading to the failure. The problems with attitude control and rolling during the coast phase caused the engine relight test to be skipped. I am sure the data will help the top notch SpaceX team make improvements for the next flight.

[@wisemanofsorts6068]

Exactly. It actually looks like the tiles held up well, but the issue was a lack of control.

[@mazulauf]

@@wisemanofsorts6068There was a lot of debris coming off the vehicle all thru reentry. I don’t think the tiles were in good shape. Both first and second stages were not at all well controlled on reentry, and they were not shedding speed anywhere close to what was needed. Both stages utterly failed reentry.

[@wisemanofsorts6068]

@@mazulauf I don't think the tiles were in great shape either, but the ship should be able to survive even with losing some tiles. The main issue was they could not control the orientation.

[@yujinhikita5611]

Wdym? The first stage made it in one piece to sea level, it just didn't ignite for the landing burn​ properlyand thus splashed down at 1100kmh@@mazulauf

[@the_latinist]

@@yujinhikita5611 The booster was not moving correctly even before the relight issue. There was a nasty oscillation in its movement that was probably at least in part the cause of the failure to relight.

[@mutleyeng]

you could pretty clearly see the problem from the amazing footage we got. The vehicle didnt have full control of its attitude on re-entry. The engine bay was taking the brunt of the heat rather than the tiles

[@williamdeoradesilva9444]

Congratulations to SpaceX ❤

[@Battleneter]

Fantastic, they have nearly caught up to what NASA did in the 1960's, we have come so far !

[@jogreeen]

3rd failure, yes congratulations. 😂🤣

[@stratolestele7611]

Hey, you two with the ill-conceived comments. Was NASA trying land or have anything they could reuse? Had SpaceX been trying merely to reach space, they would have succeeded perfectly. They reached the max height as was planned. If you cannot see the incredibly fast pace of iteration, well then I guess it's just your loss.

[@ecbftl]

@@Battleneter The SpaceX Starship rocket is much bigger and lifts more than the Saturn 5 and Artemis rockets. The development timeline is faster and cheaper, and ultimately these mass production rockets will be reusable like the fleet of Falcon 9s which preceded them.

[@tylerclayton6081]

Congratulations to the USA. Space X and Nasa will go to the moon then Mars

[@wisemanofsorts6068]

This by far the best analysis video I have seen from a news agency. Well done 👏

[@paddycalrissian1468]

Wow. A positive news story from CBC! And not trashing Elon or SpaceX. Good coverage.

[@smavtmb2196]

It was incredible. I don't think the heat tiles failed. Ship 28 was rolling/struggling to keep the tile side facing into the atmosphere. Meaning too much heat was likley hitting the side with no protection tiles. That's possibly what failed.

[@ecbftl]

I agree. That seemed clear from some of the final footage.

[@TCV12]

Great job CBC.

[@anthonyfn]

Great recap of today's launch.

[@michaeljmobley]

The main takeaway that most common folk don't understand is that they keep improving on their previous flight attempts and are not afraid to fail because failing fast and improving faster is how you push the envelope to make monumental achievements in human history. If we eventually can get to a point where this vehicle can safely go into orbit and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and land unscathed will be incredible! A fully reusable booster and a fully reusable ship would transcend our ideas of human spaceflight.

[@cariboudjan3576]

Honestly like it was said, it would be weird if it didn't blow up. I am a computer programmer, and I have to test my code over and over again to know what isn't working, so I know what to fix. If I wrote something and it ran perfectly the first time, I would be very, very surprised.

[@Mellowyellow8888]

anyone with a research/development background will know that how space x operates are how things should be done.. design, test, iterate.. learn from failures.. testing from numerical models only take you so far.. sometimes you just gotta put it to the test in the real world.. and see what actually works..

[@TravelStillGrowDefend]

Thank you for reporting on this given your reach and reputation. Great work. I also wanted to share some corrections as I see them. 0:08 This is video is of IFT2 (Integrated Flight Test 2 on 11.18.23) not IFT3 yesterday 3.14.24 but certainly had better weather conditions on IFT2. 1:35 I'm not sure seeing hot staging twice on the first 2 experimental flights, that it's been tried on, can be described as "mastered" but this is a good sign. Remember hot staging was not the original plan, see IFT1. This is not a new technique, just new to SpaceX. 3:19 This is not a photo of a Starlink satellite. 3:35 This is more accurately called refilling not refueling, and the transfer would more accurately be of propellants liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane (LCH4) rather than fuel. It's important to note these propellants are cryogenic,

[@nankinink]

I clicked the video to laugh at the "hurr durr spacex has blown up another ship" but got impressed by actually reporting the event. Props to you all! 👏

[@ChaJ67]

You should probably pull in Scott Manley. He did an excellent analysis. For the reentry, what Scott Manly points out and it is kind of obvious, especially after he points it out, is Starship was going in rear first when contact was lost. The is not the orientation the rocket stage is supposed to be in. Like having the Space Shuttle come in at the wrong orientation, things start vaporizing that are not supposed to be vaporizing. The heat shield tiles can't help if you are not oriented to be using them. So loss of contact was probably vital systems in the back of the rocket vaporized. But yeah, this test flight has certainly brought in a treasure trove of engineering data back to the SpaceX engineers and they will have a lot more to go on in order to figure out how to hit the next set of milestones. Something important to point out is SpaceX more or less demonstrated everything any other orbital class rocket does in a launch. This is more or less a true orbital class rocket at this point as per definition of what has qualified all of the other orbital class rockets as such. Now they are just working on the icing on the cake of full re-usability, which it seems they are destined to achieve. It might take several tries to work out the details, but I think they will get it. But consider, no other rocket does this re-usability thing. It is like say you build a Boeing 747 and after each flight you scrap the plane and build a whole new one for the next flight. This is ridiculously expensive to do. So SpaceX coming along and saying give us a few more tries and we think we can reuse the whole rocket, That is a huge deal. Game changer.

[@avilabetty26]

Finally a good report analysis of the 3rd flight. But I think starship was not stable enough during re entry. Hopefully they will make it on the 4th!

[@CESmith]

Good recap! The only thing i can add was the Ship (second stage) had a rotation throughout the coast phase and was actually tumbling during re-entry. We actually see it entering tail first at one point. So, we didn't get a perfect test of those heat shield tiles on this flight.

[@iamaduckquack]

This vehicle is going to get taller and more powerful over time as well.

[@haraldsbaumanis]

An incredible test flight. For anyone interested in a more detailed analysis of what might have gone wrong I really recommend Scott Manley's latest video on YT

[@ecbftl]

I concur.

[@ismailnyeyusof3520]

The last sentence spoken in this video sealed its good credibility for me, This third flight was a clear step forward’. Well done!

[@mr.ripley3846]

Great video on the topic. IFT-3 was a huge success despite it didn't make it through the re-entery. I want to point out, (this is very important!) that at this point no one can confirm the failure of the heat tiles to protect it from plasma field. The Starship wasn't re-entering at the right angle. In the video you can clearly see plasma got on the steel and it was just the matter of time for Starship burn up in the atmoshpere. Starship had problems with controling the vehicle most probably bcs of frozen thrusters (needs to be confirmed). The Starship flaps are unable of fully orienting the vehicle in the right position so only the heat tiles get hit by plasma. Will se what the investigation will show. Hope IFT-4 brings more light whatever the heat shielding is working properly or not.

[@SachithDickwellaPrasanna]

More like the ship failed to keep turning the shielded face towards the plasm field than the heatshield tiles failed to do their job.

[@iannorris6582]

Thank you CBC News

[@genuinefreewilly5706]

It is hard to fathom a structure so large and tall, like a 35 story building fly into space powered by natural gas. Is it the future?, I do not know but it is an engineering feat.

[@jptrainor]

The Saturn rockets were 36 stories.

[@genuinefreewilly5706]

@@jptrainor You are correct. I am mistaken the starship is supposedly 39 stories. Its a ridiculously huge machine.

[@jptrainor]

​@@genuinefreewilly5706Indeed Starship is much bigger in total mass. I have a feeling an advanced civilization would look upon us with a smirk for burning fuel to put such a huge thing into orbit.

[@iamaduckquack]

It's going to get taller and more powerful as well.

[@grlcowan]

@@jptrainor Let's hope we soon are that civilization.

[@danelucas2579]

Finally a news outlet with a positive spin

[@FernandoMoreira]

So refreshing to watch some factual news. Some tiny incorrect details, but overall Fantastic job. 👍🏻

[@austingray6274]

Great recap

[@HeyyItsNick]

I disagree it was the failure of the tiles, I watched the full live stream and Starship had an uncontrolled rotation since it did an engine shut-off with a constant leak/venting. It tumbled slowly back into the atmosphere, not allowing its flaps to generate the lift needed to stabilize and to cancel out the inertia built up in the rocket. It was the tumbling of the uncontrolled descent that lead to the failure, not the heat tiles.

[@swapshots4427]

RCS & TPS were the culprits. That is why iterative flight tests are so important. Next time, new & improved.

[@ecbftl]

I agree, not sure if oxy vent process contributed to roll/attitude issues. Of course flaps not very helpful until there is air under them. I bet the weight and balance after the fuel transfer from head to main tank may have been a factor, and maybe the remaining fuel was moving around inside making the ship hard to control.

[@GabrielDucharme]

Good reporting!

[@neom0nk]

About That is single-handedly changing CBC, kudos.

[@alexanderkenway]

Surprisingly solid coverage

[@anthonysmz3]

Failure of reentry was most likely due to loss of ship control, not tile failure, as the ship wasn't pointed or couldn't control its position relative to the earth's atmosphere, exposing non-tiled sections of the ship to the extreme heat of reentry.

[@justaguy6217]

Finally we have a good summary of the test flight! They have summarised this test flight quite well. It's rare to see something like this in the media these days, especially when it comes to Starship!

[@TeslaElonSpaceXFan]

Starship ❤❤❤

[@direbearcoat7551]

Towards the end of the video, they say that the tiles failed to do their job in protecting the ship from the heat of reentry. I think they have it wrong. One thing they did not seem to catch was that Ship 28 was tumbling. That little graphic at the bottom was moving around a lot, pointing the wrong way at times. Also, the ship could not establish a stable attitude when it finally hit the atmosphere. It continued to tumble. I don't think the ship failed because of the tiles. I think it failed because it was tumbling and not achieving a steady attitude as it reentered the atmosphere. The forces acting against it likely tore the ship to pieces because it was not stable. Likely a failure of the reaction control system to get the ship pointed and lined up in the right attitude.

[@drewcama2488]

It was an amazing eye popping step 3 test. We are not so sure if it was a failure of the tiles or more the controlled reentry.

[@user-MR3og7tb4X]

ТОРЖЕСТВЕННОЕ ВОЗНЕСЕНИЕ ✌️✌️✌️❤️🙏🙏🙏

[@domoredujordan]

Very good video

[@zukacs]

very good vid

[@duketoby0]

thanks for this refreshingly thorough review!

[@swapshots4427]

Mainstream media not being disingenously negative. Wow, I'm impressed

[@markmaceachern1]

They know the libs are out next election, and the BS is over thats why.

[@Kneedragon1962]

Far as I can see, the next major objective, is handling cryogenic fuel & LOX in low or zero gravity settings. We have obvious problems with re-lighting or re-starting Raptor engines, in flight. Now this was once or twice a minor issue with Merlin engines, but they figured out a more reliable combination and it never bothered them again. A Raptor is a far more complicated piece of kit than a Merlin. They've got pretty good at firing up 33 of them on the ground, but every time you shut one down and then attempt to relight it later, without the time for engineers to go over it and check for problems, you get a 30% or 50% chance that something went wrong on shut-down and that engine is not going to restart without human intervention. Doing hundreds or thousands of repeat tests on the test stand at Macgregor Texas, that's in the atmosphere, at normal temperatures, without a screaming gale blowing up your skirt at 3x the speed of sound, while doing wild cart-wheels around the stadium. Relighting a Raptor on the test stand, appears to be somewhat difficult & tricky. Doing it while 5 second out from hitting the landing pad at twice the speed of sound ~ You've got to get that process THOUSANDS of times more reliable than it currently is.

[@asimkasir]

The size alone is mind blowing! Able to fly that tower to space! While every other company barely can fly a small rocket lol..

[@ryansullivan5782]

Nice video. It would be great to see a video that compares the failures of different rockets throughout rocket design history. Of course there are many rockets that have been designed, but if such a video could include the most long-term successful ones. It would be interesting to see how many failures the historically successful rockets incurred before they became successful, and compare those transitions (from failures to successes) to SpaceX, Blue Origin, ect.

[@snuffeldjuret]

indeed, but you do get into the problem of, what is a new rocket? Like, falcon 9 that flies today is clearly not the same as the inaugural Falcon 9, but Vostok and Soyuz counts as different rockets?

[@kephalopod3054]

Much more than a ton of fuel ...

[@colegustafson199]

Good recap, the one thing that was wrong was the fact that it wasn’t likely th tiles that failed, rather the attitude control, wherein it was rolling a tumbling during reentry, heating up unprotected areas.

[@coryturnbull5444]

Total success!!!

[@stevenbense3504]

There might just be some hope for journalism it seems.

[@johnreyn19]

It is clear from the re-entry video that their software didn't handle the dynamics of controlling the vehicle. I'm sure the next launch will have some major changes.

[@thomasrichardson8327]

It clearly was not a failure of tiles. Tiles do not control pitch/yaw/roll. It was tumbling before connection was lost.

[@Etherus69]

starship did not burn up because of the heat tiles, it burnt up because it could not hold proper attitude during reentry

[@AM-zn9di]

🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

[@NickDrinksWater]

Go Elon!

[@ironspider9280]

3:18 I'm pretty sure that's soyuz, not starlink 😂

[@tjn0110]

Testing the heatshields to failure is far more useful and informative than not.

[@andich8787]

Microphone quality lacking on this one CBC

[@dmd406]

I want that shirt, "OCCUPY MARS"

[@takaprawda6049]

Ile realnie rakieta Starship Super Heavy jest w stanie wynieść na orbitę ? Z silnikami Raptor 3.1 3.2 łączna masa ciagu przekroczy 10 tysiecy ton zaś sama rakieta z paliwem przekracza masę 5 tysiecy ton . Róznica siły ciagu rakiety do masy jest olbrzymia co nie pownino być problemem z wyniesieniem na orbitę 500 ton lub wiecej ? Jak to jest w praktyce czy wyniesienie 500 ton na orbitę jest możliwe ?

[@kieranororke620]

Learning stage by stage

[@jptrainor]

750 tonnes of methane fuel. Wouldn't want the carbon tax bill on that one. But then again, NordStream released 173 *kilo* tonnes of methane directly into the atmosphere and nobody said boo.

[@snuffeldjuret]

and this is combusted methane, so even less bad :).

[@jptrainor]

​@@snuffeldjuretYes. Not nearly as bad as straight methane. I asked ChatGPT to estimate how many homes could be heated for a year with that much methane. It estimated 375. Not bad. I expected a much higher number. Or maybe ChatGPT is totally wrong.

[@snuffeldjuret]

@@jptrainor it feels like one of those things chatgpt should be good at. My understanding is that it is less than expected, but I would not bet my life that it is that low. I would call 37 home-years bs but I would not instinctively object to 3750. Now I'm kind of curious what result a manual calculation would give us :).

[@ecbftl]

I sometimes wonder about the logistics of getting all the fuel needed if the launch frequency gets up to the levels that Musk talks about.

[@sarkaranish]

@@snuffeldjuret It's actually around 464 homes, assuming a house uses 717 therms of natural gas a year (71700 cubic feet of methane) and Starship uses 700 tons of methane, which is 33 million cubic feet of methane. Honestly not a bad calculation by chatgpt, and honestly it makes sense. we use a lot of energy.

[@jase4270]

Just think in years to come the title will be starships last flight

[@snuffeldjuret]

how so?

[@scupking]

Problem is they lost control of starship. I think the tiles would have held up. As far as the booster maybe they need to start the slow down burn sooner.

[@ctabilo1983]

Las losetas no fueron mal puestas, la entrada fue descontrolada y las fuerzas se ejercieron por toda la nave y en lugares no protegidos

[@rolieg81]

If you thinking this is the way to Proxima Centauri think again, might as well not be moving, would take 10' of thousands of years of travel time still.

[@snuffeldjuret]

if you are annoyed with the star in starship, I can't wait to hear your rant about starliner :P.

[@maxcastro007]

Where's the Asian guy? He's the best!!

[@felixsimardt]

God damn CBC is stepping up their game. Happy to see my tax dollars at work :)

[@stratolestele7611]

Maybe we can leave "God" out of the expression? It would be really nice and you could still make your point known. Peace brother

[@felixsimardt]

@@stratolestele7611I’m not religious there’s just no other way to say it 🤣

[@AshleyGrenstone]

Ooooooooooooh so you send a series of rockets between earth and another satelite (like mars) and they act as refuel for the space craft that carries people. Like placing gas stations along an interplanitary highway. Of course each of those refueling shuttles are orbiting the sun so its more complicated than that but I get the jyst of it.

[@greyeyes2786]

Wonderful science, much of which might improve life on earth. Elon Musk might give some thought to facilities that would allow most indigenous elders to age in place, in or near their far north communities.

[@oterceiro]

To Havy to Land...

[@ms753]

First

[@dr.feelicks2051]

Audio sux

[@kosminuskosminus6668]

WooooW ..... cbs changed his toon reguarding spacex .... what happened ? Did you guys realised Elon Musk history with Tesla? :))))

[@throwabrick]

I'm as impressed as the next rocket nerd, but say goodbye to ground-based astronomy and stargazing without a million freaking motes of light wrecking the view.

[@snuffeldjuret]

you are way, way exaggerating the issue.

[@cyclonic7134]

Even astronomers aren't saying that lmao

[@trails3597]

Ground telescopes are looking through a haze of air anyway. Put telescopes in space.

[@aztronomy7457]

@@trails3597yes because amateur astronomers like us can afford to do that 😂

[@howard6433]

@@aztronomy7457 So the Starlink satellites have interfered with your observation/picture?

[@pdnowlin]

Seems bad for the climate

[@xetothex]

the doors didn't function properly, the booster blew up yet again and it didn't relight correctly. it wasn't just a failure of the heat shield but failure of attitude control. starship kept spinning and wasnt able to present the heat shield side to atmosphere. it's going to take more than 2 years for them to have a successful launch, if ever, with such a large and complex plan. starship and the booster doesnt need to be quite so big. but i doubt elon's ego would let him resize the ship for the mission

[@Pixelsplasher]

Oh it needs to be really big and powerful as much as technology allows. It's meant to be a cargo ship after all, like those big container ships that carry our imported gadgets and appliances so we can all comment like we don't need them. Hehe!

[@grlcowan]

The bigger, the more efficient. As it has emerged from simulations into reality, since the days when it was called the Mars Colonial Transport and then the BFR, it *has* shrunk.

[@budsfan1970]

You must be a real blast at parties.

[@stratolestele7611]

You are way out of you league here bud.

[@ecbftl]

And there are at least 3 more just like it getting ready to fly as well. They will make improvements to them and fly very soon.

[@vladimirp9003]

Where still believing in moon visits but right here on Earth the seas Terrify us and the biggest of ships

[@Axxe80]

The moon landings are a fact.

[@ramonpunsalang3397]

Elon said Starship would fly hundreds of times before any manned flight. If so, any trup to the Moon and Mars would be at least a full decade away.

[@Lambertus09]

That depends on how quickly they accelerate production. They're building a Starship manufacturing facility and its progress is pretty stunning. It's possible hundreds of flights could be in as little as 3 or 4 years, but prpgress would need to be pretty consistent.

[@social3ngin33rin]

god damn Musk ruining my long exposure night shots!!!!!

[@TheRaidoRune]

Mission failure again, we know.

[@swapshots4427]

Not at all. Kudos to them for not portraying it as such.

[@TheRaidoRune]

@@swapshots4427Sure 😅

[@dennisjohnston3180]

Unbelievable, , I just can not stop laughing 26000 miles per hour , I call bull on that one. The CGI is also unbelievable, content for the fools.

[@amateuryoutuber]

You are the fool, you are the one being lied to.

[@grlcowan]

Right: it's kilometres per hour, not miles. Kilometres per *second* are handier units, to me anyway. 7.6 km/s for low Earth orbit, 11 km/s when the lunar astronauts returned (it was a long way down). Now-a -days we get losers who "reason" that what they, the losers, couldn't do in a million years, real men couldn't do 50 years ago. But they could and they did.

[@swapshots4427]

Just woke up from 1923? Go back to sleep.

[@sxslayerxs]

Man the roll of the engine bay taking re entry and those raptors melting down. Hope the tiles do the job next time and more precise starship control for the next one! ❤

[@BUY_YOUTUBE_VIEWS_d0dd31]

Your video has a way of making everyone feel like they belong. Inclusive and heartwarming!