SpaceX launched its mighty Starship rocket for the eighth time final week. The mission was a little bit of combined bag, with the group efficiently catching the first-stage Tremendous Heavy booster on its return to the launchpad, however dropping the Starship spacecraft in a midair explosion minutes after stage separation. The Elon Musk-led spaceflight firm is now trying into what went unsuitable.
After every Starship take a look at, SpaceX normally releases video clips displaying the mission’s key moments. On Sunday, it shared some extraordinary footage (beneath) captured from beneath the booster because it launched from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The slowed-down video reveals the rocket’s 33 Raptor engines firing up as the large 120-meter-tall automobile leaves the launchpad.
View below the launch mount as Tremendous Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines ignite on Starship’s eighth flight take a look at pic.twitter.com/WRCazkhyXs
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 9, 2025
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With the rocket pumping out a colossal 17 million kilos of thrust, it’s onerous to fathom how the digicam that captured the footage managed to remain intact. However keep intact it did.
SpaceX hasn’t revealed the way it achieved the feat, however within the feedback beneath the footage, somebody requested X’s AI assistant, Grok, how the the footage was captured from such a seemingly susceptible spot. The chatbot responded: “Excessive-speed cameras below the launch mount seize the ignition of Tremendous Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines. They’re mounted on strengthened constructions, shielded from warmth and particles, and use superior telemetry to transmit footage in real-time. SpaceX has perfected this tech for jaw-dropping views like Starship’s eighth flight take a look at.”
Capturing a close-up of the world’s strongest rocket from this angle is all of the extra outstanding when you think about how the launchpad disintegrated when it was blasted by the Starship’s rocket engines on its maiden launch in April 2023.
For the second flight take a look at, SpaceX engineers designed a extra sturdy and safe launchpad in a position to deal with the unbelievable pressure generated by the Raptor engines because the Starship lifted off.
As soon as testing of the rocket is full, NASA and SpaceX will use the Starship rocket to hold crew and cargo to the lunar floor, and presumably to Mars, too.
