Starship Flight Test 1

Launch Failure

Liftoff Time (GMT)

13:33:09

Thursday April 20, 2023

Watch Replay

NASASpaceflight.com

Mission Details

Read Article

Launch Notes

First integrated launch of Starship and Super Heavy. With this launch, Starship became the most powerful rocket ever to launch. After liftoff, the vehicle sustained fires from leaking propellant in the aft end of the Super Heavy booster, severing connections with the vehicle’s primary flight computer. This led to a loss of communication with most of the booster engines and eventually control of the vehicle. After the second stage failed to separate from the first stage, the vehicle reached an apogee of ~39km before tumbling downwards until the flight termination system was activated. Unexpected severe damage was also imparted on the launch pad.

Starship Flight Test 1

Wiki

Starship attempted to perform an integrated flight test to demonstrate an orbital launch capability. Had the vehicle not failed earlier in flight, Starship would have reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and had a splashdown 62 miles (100 km) northwest of Kauai.

Suborbital

Rocket

Retired
Starship-Super Heavy (Original)

Active in 2023

SpaceX logo

Agency

SpaceX

Rocket

Diameter: 9m

Height: 119.5m

Liftoff Thrust

67,000 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 9m

Stages

2

Launch Site

General Trajectory

NE

SE

Launching

East

Pad 1

Starbase, Texas, USA

Fastest Turnaround

37 days 9 hours

Stats

Starship


1st

Mission

1st

Mission of 2023

SpaceX


230th

Mission

26th

Mission of 2023