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SpaceX Starship flight 10 Update · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:07
  the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:11
  Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
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  SpaceX sent its Starship rocket on its 10th test flight this
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  week and pulled off a rare kind of success.
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  Everything broke, but it broke exactly how it was supposed to.
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  Flight 10 launched from Starbase early Tuesday morning and hit
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  every major milestone SpaceX was aiming for.
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  Starship survivor re entry. the Super Heavy booster executed a
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  soft landing in the Gulf, and both vehicles completed
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  controlled descents that gave engineers exactly the data that
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  they were looking for. The mission didn't hurt
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  perfection, though it wasn't supposed to.
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  This time the goal was durability under stress, not
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  flawless execution of a normal mission.
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  Now SpaceX built Flight 10 as a stress test.
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  The company hardened the heat shield, added redundancy across
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  flight systems, and tweaked the booster for reusability rather
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  than single use performance. The results made that
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  engineering philosophy look smart.
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  Starship lost several heat shield tiles and even suffered
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  localized burn throughs, but it kept flying and landed safely.
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  That outcome is more valuable than a pristine flight because
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  it confirms the design can take damage and keep going safely.
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  And Super Heavy's return marked another major step.
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  For the first time, SpaceX lit a subset of Raptor engines during
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  splashdown and attempt in a soft landing on the water.
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  The maneuver was not only successful, but also matched the
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  target time and location with tight precision.
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  Engineers will now examine the booster to determine how much of
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  it survived and whether similar landings can lead to a rapid
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  reusability. Starship's re entry phase was
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  the most aggressive test yet. The vehicle hit Earth's
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  atmosphere at a high angle. It's higher than in previous
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  flights and endured heating levels far above anything it had
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  seen before. Sensors captured how the new
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  heat shield design handled this thermal load in some parts
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  failed and controlled ways that match pre flight predictions.
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  The data will now feed into design changes for flight
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  11/12/13 and even into the Block 3 systems.
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  The flight also proved out several new backup systems.
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  SpaceX installed redundant avionics and control hardware in
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  case of single point failures and during descent.
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  One of those backup pathways kicked in when a guidance system
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  momentarily lost signal vehicle corrected itself in real time.
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  It continued on its course. That kind of fault tolerance is
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  critical for eventual crude missions to the moon and to
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  Mars. Now SpaceX stream the entire
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  flight publicly, of course, but the most useful parts happen
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  behind the scenes. The engineers received terabytes
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  of high fidelity telemetry that will inform the next round of
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  structural, thermal and control updates.
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  This test was about building a rocket that survives even when
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  things go wrong. And a lot of things kind of were
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  made to go wrong in this situation.
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  One reason this flight is important more than the previous
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  ones is its timing. SpaceX is still targeting 2027
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  for a crude lunar landing as part of the Artemis program for
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  NASA. It hit that date.
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  Starship has to prove it can fly.
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  It has to land and it has to fly again with little to no
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  refurbishment. Flight 10 didn't get Starship
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  all the way there, but it made real progress toward that kind
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  of resilience and that kind of flight.
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  And this mission also gave NASA and other stakeholders something
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  they needed evidence. And that's proof that SpaceX can
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  identify failure modes and control them.
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  Starships past test flights have ended an explosion.
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  So last three they lost signals or they had uncontrolled
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  landings. Now this one delivered a stable
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  flight rofile, contained damage within the systems, and lanned
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  system handoffs that all worked as designed.
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  SpaceX has started testing ground systems for rapid turn
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  around, too. New cryogenic propellant loading
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  rigs, water deluge pads, and robotic tile inspection systems
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  are ready, being installed as Star Base.
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  Next phase of testing will focus not just on flight performance,
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  but on how quickly the team can prep Starship for another
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  flight. Flight 10 didn't just advance
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  the rocket, though. It validated a specific mindset.
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  SpaceX is betting that controlled failure builds better
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  hardware than cautious. Success.
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  Strategy only works when the systems are designed to handle
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  those failures without catastrophic consequences.
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  And this time, they handled it with ease.
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  Now Flight 11 is already in its stacking prep.
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  It'll carry the next generation of heat tiles, a tweak booster
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  layout, and more aggressive return profiles.
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  And if Starship keeps surviving increasingly hard conditions,
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  the next big milestone may not be a test flight at all, and may
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  be the first one SpaceX tries to fly again.
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  Now. This flight made the risk feel
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  calculated. That's what matters right now.
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  But in the next flights, they will launch possibly actual
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  Starlink satellites. So with every flight of
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  Starship, SpaceX will be making money and possibly making their
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  money back every time they fly. Now, flight 10, they did some
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  dummy Starlinks and those went very well.
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  If they could do that every flight, they could pay for each
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  one of these flights, one of these test flights with just
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  deploying these Starlinks. That is a huge, gigantic step
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  forward with Spacex's Starlink system and the Starship cargo
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  system for Starlink launches. Hey, thank you so much for
• 6:12
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 6:14
  support. If you could take a second and
• 6:16
  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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  platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
• 6:22
  appreciate it. It helps out the show
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  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
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  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
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  caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
• 6:32
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and
• 6:38
  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
• 6:41
  tomorrow.