Watching SpaceX’s 12th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight
After yesterday’s scrub, SpaceX has now rescheduled the 12th test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy for later today, with a launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).
The upcoming flight will debut the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, powered by the next evolution of the Raptor engine and launching from a newly designed pad at Starbase.
The flight test’s primary goal will be to demonstrate each of these new pieces in the flight environment for the first time, with each element of the Starship architecture featuring significant redesigns to enable full and rapid reuse that incorporate learnings from years of development and test.
I have once again embedded below several different live streams of the flight.
I cannot embed the SpaceX feed without signing into X, so if you want to watch using that you can find it here. It goes live at around 5 pm (Central).
The NASASpaceFlight feed, live at about noon (Central):
The Everyday Astronaut feed, live at about 2 pm (Central):
The Space Affairs feed, which is simply the SpaceX feed with no additional commentary, live at about 2 pm (Central):
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Was down there for yesterday’s attempt, but, alas, had to return this morning.
Godspeed, Flight 12!
Looking forward to a spectacular demonstration flight. There’s billions riding on how this looks via the IPO.
At 52+30, Starship remains happy. Booster had a tough time, and did not survive well the boostback burn. Cheers –
It looked perfect. Spectacular!!!
But…..
The launch was quick. It jumped into the air. But it looked like the first stage had an engine problem first then a software problem after separation. But it tried to relight and land at the end.
Overall seems successful. Except the booster but it is completely new with V3 Raptors. And even the booster did the boosting.
Successful.
When they showed the SpaceX employees I saw very few if any H-1B work visas.
James Street: Did you also notice how those employees at one point began to chant “USA! USA!” They obviously don’t have the proper academic understanding of our global world.
All: I have now posted a summary of the flight. Refresh your browsers and comment there.
A few glitches but spectacularly successful first test. Go SpaceX. Go USA.
Looks like it GAT WAY from them
Survival of the flaps was, as Grok just said to me, “a meaningful step forward”.
I asked Grok how much more heat when returning from LEO:
“… a full orbital return will expose the ship to roughly 2–4 times higher peak heating rates and significantly more total heat, plus longer duration. …”
I just want to wish everyone at SpaceX good luck, we’re all counting on you.
What a way to start a weekend which celebrates the sacrifices of a prior generation (Memorial Weekend).
Despite all the complete nonsense on many in the mislabeled woke generation, I see the bright shining stars of young folks at SpaceX.
These young men and women were ecstatic, and reveling in the success of their tremendous labor and dedication. I hope they are inspired by the recent moon mission of Artemis for their generation and realize it’s easily within their grasp to go so much farther.
U.S.A U.S.A U.S.A
“And don’t call me Shirley!”
The footage of the Starlink mock-up looking back at Starship is the most interesting of all videos so far, in that it appeared to show that there was still some ice on the dorsal side aft.
While Trump is still in office, perhaps the President could have some of the BMDO guys modify a Kinetic Kill Vehicle with cameras so as to inspect Starship aloft… maybe a heat shield package that could follow it down.
On engines
https://x.com/Echo5550/status/2058046471606342058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2058046471606342058%7Ctwgr%5Ef543eab4ca308bc0b852db83a94fcc72734e95f1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.secretprojects.co.uk%2Fthreads%2Fspacex.13774%2Fpage-255
Nasaspaceflight’s Flight 12 thread (page 73-74 IIRC)
has good comparison shots of different ascents and descents—and the differences really jump out.
I thought it rose from the pad somewhat faster, but only had memory to compare it to.
The shock waves were of interest.
In the same way architects of old used string…might a SuperHeavy model with bells for nozzles be helpful?
There are new ways to see sound
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-visualizing-scientists-reveal-hidden-behaviors.html
If boosters do widen and engine numbers go up—perhaps this may be of use in engine placement
https://momath.org/home/fibonacci-numbers-of-sunflower-seed-spirals/