SpaceX conducted a new flight test of its Super Heavy rocket and Starship prototypes, launched from its base in Boca Chica, Texas. This is the fourth test involving the entire system of Elon Musk’s company which is supposed to revolutionize space travel with an unprecedented transport capacity and being totally reusable. In this case, however, they are prototypes with the Super Heavy identified as Booster 11 and the Starship identified as Starship 29 or Ship29 or simply S29. Each test leads to new changes to the vehicles’ systems and this happened after the third test conducted on March 14, 2024, as well. The vehicles still don’t meet the safety requirements needed to conduct controlled landings, so plans continue to call for the test to end with the splashdown of both vehicles.

The trajectory of this fourth test is essentially the same as the third test conducted almost three months ago. One difference is that the plan was to simulate a landing for Booster 11 as well instead of letting it have a hard splashdown. The braking maneuver appears to have been successful with nearly all engines firing leading to a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

Booster 11 appears to have performed almost perfectly with a noticeable problem shortly after blastoff when one of the outer engines failed to start. The braking burn had failed in the previous test while today the entire descent maneuver seems to have been almost completely successful.

The greatest progress was sought in the performance of the Starship prototype given that in previous tests the prototypes were destroyed in various phases of the mission well before splashdown. During the return from an altitude well above 160 kilometers, Starship 29 suffered some damage. The camera showing the flight was also damaged, so little was visible about what happened during the maneuvers that led to the splashdown. During SpaceX’s live broadcast, they said that telemetry data indicates that the maneuvers were successful.

As is becoming routine, satellites from the Starlink network were also used to maintain links with Super Heavy 11 and Starship 29 for as long as possible, and certainly, a lot of telemetry data was collected that will help understand where more work is needed. Today, the satisfaction expressed during SpaceX’s live broadcast is justified but now the company must perfect this launch system so that it can transport payloads and people.