SpaceX had better luck with the Starship V3 upper stage during Friday’s launch. The upper stage lost a rocket engine during the first V3 launch in May. That didn’t happen this time around, as Starship encountered no issues on its way to deploying the new Starlinks. The Ship, as the company calls it, was able to survive the harsh forces of atmospheric reentry and perform a simulated landing in the Indian Ocean roughly one hour after liftoff.
Unlike previous Starship missions, the Ship didn’t explode when it tipped over into the water. The Ship instead floated around in the water, giving SpaceX a chance to use a drone to closely examine the heat shield tiles on its belly.
The new Starlink satellites burned up in the atmosphere roughly 20 minutes after deployment, as Starship still isn’t capable of reaching Earth orbit. SpaceX was able to communicate with all of them while they were in space, marking a step forward for that program, which is the only profitable part of the company’s business.
The ability to deploy the more capable V3 Starlink satellites improves the economics of the company’s capital-hungry space internet network. SpaceX has said launching 60 of the new satellites on Starship is a “potential twenty-fold increase” in downlink capacity deployed versus those flown by a single Falcon 9.
However, it’s not clear if SpaceX can realize those gains if Starship expends the Super Heavy booster rather than reusing it. SpaceX’s S-1 said that without a fully-reusable Starship, progress on Starlink “would be at a slower pace and higher cost.”
With assistance from Tim Fernholz.
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