Elon Musk just Declared this after first Starship Flight 13 launch Attempt "ABORTED"... === #alphatech #techalpha #spacex #elonmusk === Elon Musk just Declared this after first Starship Flight 13 launch Attempt "ABORTED"... Welcome to Alpha Tech! In this video, we take an in-depth look at the first Starship Flight 13 launch attempt and the dramatic events that led to the mission being aborted just before liftoff. We'll break down the timeline of the countdown, examine the technical factors that may have triggered the last-minute decision, and explain why launch aborts are often a vital part of developing a fully reusable launch system. You'll also hear what Elon Musk revealed following the attempt, what SpaceX engineers are expected to investigate, and how the company plans to move forward toward the next launch opportunity. We explore the significance of Flight 13 in the broader Starship development program, including improvements to the Super Heavy booster, Raptor engines, launch infrastructure, and flight safety systems. In addition, we'll discuss how the outcome could impact future Starship missions, NASA's Artemis program, orbital refueling demonstrations, and SpaceX's ultimate goal of making human missions to the Moon and Mars a reality. Whether you're a longtime follower of SpaceX or simply fascinated by cutting-edge aerospace technology, this video provides a clear and detailed breakdown of one of the most important moments in Starship's ongoing journey. Be sure to subscribe to Alpha Tech for the latest SpaceX news, Starship updates, rocket engineering insights, and everything happening in the rapidly evolving world of space exploration.
This video provides a live pre-launch update and countdown for Starship Flight 13, the second test of the Version 3 vehicle. While the mission aimed to test Raptor 3 engines and deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites, a technical hold during the engine ignition sequence resulted in a scrub for the day.
Hello, and welcome to Starbase Texas.
It's 5.13 p.m. Central Time, and we are 31 minutes and 38 seconds away from Starship Flight 13,
the second flight test of our next-generation Starship, Version 3.
You see it there on your screen.
I'm Kate Tice, Senior Manager, Quality Systems Engineering.
And I'm Nathan Commissary, a civil engineer here at SpaceX.
Today we are coming to you live from just outside the floor of Star Factory,
our one-million-square-foot rocket factory where we build Starship.
Yeah, I don't know what's cooler, the rocket or the place where we build it.
Now, back in May, the first flight test of Starship, Version 3, delivered tons of data,
and we'll be putting those learnings into practice today on Flight 2.
All of this brings us one step closer to a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle,
the key to enabling frequent flights to the Moon and Mars.
Starship will also enhance Starlink's constellation and connectivity on Earth, the Moon, and beyond,
while helping establish a network of AI data centers in space.
Success on today's suborbital mission also opens the door for near-future orbital flights
and our first attempt to catch ship on Tower 2 here at Starbase.
Pretty exciting, and this is also an exciting day for the Starlink team
because we are planning to deploy 20 of the newest Starlink satellites.
These sats aren't intended for operational use and will only be in space for about 20 minutes before demising,
but during that 20 minutes, we're going to speedrun a bunch of tests,
things like deploying solar arrays, firing thrusters.
We'll get into those details a little later in the show.
Yeah. Now, what Starlink engineers learn today will be essential to deploying operational V3 satellites
into the Starlink constellation on future Starship flights.
These larger, more powerful next-generation satellites are designed to boost orbital capacity,
strengthen the overall network, and deliver a noticeably better experience for our customers.
And as we've said before, Starship is a developmental program.
What we're doing today is a test.
We test in flight because it's the best way to rapidly iterate the design
by putting the vehicle through its paces in the actual conditions it will experience during an operational mission.
Exactly. So while we have real Starlink satellites on board, the most important payload today is data.
But no matter the outcome of today's test flight, as usual, excitement is guaranteed.
Now, let's head a couple of floors upstairs where Dan Hewitt is just outside the Launch Control Center.
How's it going, Dan?
Hey, Nathan. It is going great. Hi to Kate as well.
And hey, everybody else. I'm Dan Hewitt with SpaceX Communications.
It's great to be back here with you, flying from Starbase just a couple of weeks after the last one.
That was Flight 12. That was in May.
We debuted a lot of new hardware, all of it flying for the first time.
We're going to dig into some of the details in a minute on how that flight went,
but it came with a bunch of exciting wins, some important lessons.
But let's look at right now. Things are looking very good.
We are not tracking any issues on the vehicle or on the pad.
Just behind me in the Launch Control Center, we've got engineers on console
looking at the rocket, all the systems as we count down.
We have started propellant load, putting liquid oxygen, liquid methane on both stages of Starship,
and we're looking good right now to launch at the open of our window at 5.45 p.m. Central time.
Weather is barely worth mentioning.
We came in today with about a 90 percent probability of go,
and we've got blue skies, scattered clouds, no scary winds.
We're looking really good.
Range is also currently green for launch.
Reminder, we're watching the range both off the coast and the Gulf here at Starbase.
It's powered by 33 of our newest iteration Raptor 3 engines.
You see them there.
And those run on liquid methane and oxygen.
This version of Raptor provides a significant increase in thrust.
With that additional thrust, fun fact,
this version of Starship gets off the pad faster than our previous versions.
Here you can see Version 1 Starship on the left, V2 in the middle, and V3 on the right.
That was our first flight of V3 on Flight 12, and that thing just leaps off the pad.
Confirming the operation of the holddowns on the launch mount
and performing multiple integrated tests of the propellant farms, water farm, diverter, and launch mount.
With Starship coming to 39A, the launch complex will soon have two operational pads
for two very different rockets with Starship and Falcon Heavy.
It has been awesome to see the 39A Starship program come to life.
Pad 37A is targeted to be ready for flight operations early next year,
which is very fast considering we only started construction on the pad in November.
This year, teams have worked through ground preparations at the pad and fuel farms
while also fully excavating the flame trench for Pad 37A.
In June, stacking began of the launch and catch tower, and you can see that there on your screen.
And we have plans to complete that stacking in the coming weeks.
And a few miles west of Pad 37 is our Cape Giga Bay,
where all Starship vehicles in Florida will be processed for flight.
Recently, teams finished erecting all of the building steel
and are now working to finish the exterior of the structure.
In the coming weeks, SpaceX will complete activation of the first crane in the building,
set up the first integration stands, and complete platform work to be ready
for supporting the first Starship vehicles that will arrive in Florida.
For our part, we're going to be launching a Starship with a docking port on the nose
so we can practice rendezvous and docking with the crew inside of Orion.
One of our key test objectives is going to come after docking.
So range continues to be green. Weather continues to be gorgeous.
We are getting into the final stages of propellant loading on both stages of Starship.
Again, we're putting liquid oxygen, liquid methane on both the booster and the ship.
The ship has main tanks. It also has those small header tanks in the very top
in the nose of the vehicle that we're going to fill up.
We're going to close out on the ship at about 2 minutes and 10 seconds before launch,
and then the booster at about 2 minutes and 50.
Once we're completely done prop loading, you've got about 11.5 million pounds
of liquid propellant on board both stages.
Then we start to get the pad itself ready for launch.
We do what's called pushbacks.
That's you're clearing out all of those propellant feed lines that have been flowing
from the tank farm into the tower, into the vehicles, push it back into the tank farm,
and then we also start purging all of those lines with an inert gas,
just getting it ready for launch.
We'll do final thrust vector steering controls on our Raptor engines
at about T-100 seconds and then T-60 seconds.
If a hold is needed, shocking change, it's now going to come at T-60 seconds.
That's a new time we've balanced out a couple of our final checks that happened
before liftoff, and we moved them a little bit earlier before we start flying,
so that time is now at T-60.
That's the point where we can pause to wait.
We'll only hold there if there's an issue, and we can recycle back.
T-60 seconds passes.
A number of events will occur in rapid succession.
Both the ship and booster will configure their comm systems for flight
and will rapidly run leak checks on gas and fluid tanks.
The booster will also go to internal power,
and its engines will get its final priming for launch
while the ship's engines begin their ascent bleed profile,
and it arms the automatic flight safety system.
There's a lot of mechanical activations on the tower side as well,
with one critical step, unlatching the quick disconnect feeding propellant into the ship.
And once T-60 seconds has passed,
there is still the ability to rapidly recycle the count under certain conditions
back to that T-60 second hold point.
We can hold there and assess what happened and if teams can proceed again to T-0.
We've got about five to eight minutes of hold time,
and that will largely be driven by the propellant temperatures
that we see on the vehicle while holding.
The flame diverter on Pad 2, which you can see the side profile of it there on your screen,
that activates at T-17 seconds,
and if we trigger a hold after that, it will result in a scrub for the day.
So we're now just under three and a half minutes until liftoff.
If you've recently joined, we're planning to deploy 20 of our Starlink V3 satellites.
These are real V3s on board, so that's exciting.
We also would like to perform a Raptor in-space relight as well.
That's right, and actually on the screen now you're seeing an awesome view of our pad
and the clouds that you're seeing coming off of our fuel tank farm,
all now being used for its second time here for Flight 13.
All right, so we're through the three-minute mark,
so we should be closing out prop load on the booster any second now.
And then the closeouts on the ship will come just a little bit after that.
Again, we're looking a little over 11.5 million pounds of propellant on both of these vehicles.
We are not currently tracking any holds on the board, which is always good news.
Reminder, we have that built-in hold at T-1 minute.
We're only going to stop there if we run into an issue where we need a couple of minutes to hang out,
but right now we have no holds on the board.
So a whole lot on deck for Starship, the second flight of Starship version 3, booster version 3, Raptor 3.
Looking to get off the pad here in two minutes.
All right, so we are closing the fill drain valves for both vehicles,
so we have finished out our propellant loading.
Thirty-three Raptor engines right there at the bottom of the booster getting ready to light up.
Final wiggle checks happening now.
You can see those inner 13 engines moving.
Those are the ones that Super Heavy is going to be using to steer, do all its maneuvers.
We just got through those.
Okay, so we are one minute, 20 seconds away, counting down.
We're going to listen in.
Again, not tracking a hold, so we should move right past T-1 minute.
If we recycle back to it, we'll figure out why, and then we'll continue counting down.
So let's go, T-1 minute.
Let's listen in, let the rocket do the talking, see if we can get a Starship off the pad today.
We did trigger a hold.
So, again, we have this hold built in.
We've got a couple of checkouts that are going to happen on the vehicle and the pad that we've got to clear.
A lot of it's tied to essentially the different pressures that are in the systems that are feeding prop into the vehicles.
Looks like we are getting ready to reset that hold, though.
And the clock is rolling.
And we did trigger a hold right at startup there.
You saw we got a hold on the booster.
So stick with us for a second.
So we did trigger a hold on the booster.
That aborted our liftoff as we were starting to light those Raptor engines.
As a reminder, since we already turned the diverter on, we are going to be scrubbed for the day.
The team is already starting to pull for offload of both vehicles, so starting to get the prop off.