00:00Behind it, there's some of those great views from Starlink giving us views of Starship's onboard videos.
00:10And so we're hoping that the Starlink onboard will let us, just like we're seeing these videos now,
00:15see through that plasma field by maintaining a continuous communication lock with the satellites on orbit
00:21through the wake that Starship leaves behind.
00:24Now this is only the second time that we're testing Starlink during re-entry.
00:28So even though we do have these great visuals now, don't be surprised if we manage to get some signal hiccups through.
00:35We're still learning about what that wake will actually look like in practice
00:38and whether we're able to get that live continuous high-speed data during re-entry.
00:47Yeah, that's right.
00:48And one of the really primary reasons we want to use Starlink is to just gather as much data as possible.
00:54It's been said the data is the payload on one of these flights where we're putting this flight hardware
01:01in a real flight environment, trying to learn about it as much as possible.
01:06Re-entry is going to be a really critical phase of flight.
01:09We really want to know how the ship's going to perform, especially that heat shield,
01:14as we're going through the hypersonic re-entry.
01:16So if something were to go wrong during this re-entry, we want as many paths as possible to collect that information,
01:23that data, just to, again, just continually feed back into the Starship program
01:29to make each flight more reliable, more successful.
01:32Acquisition of single, Mauritius.
01:33Now, if Starship manages to make it all the way through re-entry,
01:45we'll collect valuable data on Starship flying through the Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds,
01:51meaning more than five, or at this point, we'll be more than five times the speed of sound.
01:56Now, we're watching these live views, HD views by the looks of it, thanks to Starlink.
02:04You can see that the flaps there on the ship might be actuating.
02:14Certainly some incredible visions of planet Earth behind Starship.
02:21Now, we've already validated Starship's ability to fly and land at subsonic speeds.
02:28You might recall those suborbital flights from a few years ago, and we can see those flaps there.
02:36So getting data on aspects like heating and control while traveling way faster than we did before
02:42is going to be critical to eventually bringing Starships back from space for rapid reuse.
02:47So I mentioned those flaps. That's one of the things that enables Starship to help control itself
02:53and survive the heat of re-entry, which, like we said before, we're expecting that re-entry to occur around T plus 49 minutes.
03:01So we're getting pretty close here.
03:03And what you're seeing here, it looks like the vehicle is sort of moving back and forth.
03:07Part of what you're also seeing is one of the cameras, this onboard view that we have, is on the end of a flap.
03:13Starship has front flaps and rear flaps in the vehicle.
03:16So we've got four of those.
03:19And, oh man, we can see the heating on those flaps as we're starting to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
03:24This is where the Earth's atmosphere is doing the work to slow us down.
03:29Now, like we said, this plasma field is, wow, what a view.
03:34We hope to maintain these views throughout.
03:37Starship is so big that we're hoping that the plasma field doesn't entirely blanket the entire vehicle.
03:43Right now, it is not.
03:46The Starlinks are still communicating and still capturing the data and the video that we see here.
03:54I mean, Shiva, this is just absolutely incredible views.
03:57We've never seen anything like this before.
03:59This is the biggest flying object ever in space.
04:02Absolutely, Kate.
04:03And it's important to note, the ascent burn that we did was to get us to orbital velocities, even though we were on a nearly orbital trajectory.
04:13So the heating and the loads that Starship is going through right now are what it would be getting if it were recovering from an orbital mission.
04:22And just the fact that we have views through entry, this is incredible.
04:25Yeah, again, this is the furthest and fastest that Starship has ever flown.
04:33And you can definitely tell by the crowd here in Hawthorne.
04:39The heat shield tiles doing their work.
04:41We talked about it earlier.
04:43Up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit that those heat shield tiles are dissipating as we are reentering.
04:50Yeah, now this was one of the critical or rather the key mission objectives that we were hoping to hit today.
04:58We have never, like I said before, this is the fastest and furthest that Starship has ever flown.
05:02So this is the first time that we're getting to collect this reentry data and understand how these 18,000 hexagonal heat shield tiles
05:10are working together to protect the belly of Starship as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere.
05:16Once again, the atmosphere is doing us a big favor here.
05:23The atmosphere is actually doing us a huge favor here by acting as a braking system for Starship as it reenters the atmosphere.
05:31And that's part of the reason why the flaps are so important.
05:34We're using the body of Starship and the drag from the atmosphere to slow us down from orbital speed.
05:40But you want the vehicle to remain stable.
05:43You want those heat shield tiles pointed down so they can absorb the heat of the Earth's atmosphere.
05:51And so that's the purpose that they are serving during the hypersonic phase and then again during the subsonic phase.
05:57Absolutely.
05:58So like we said, these views are being provided by a couple of Starlink terminals that are positioned on Starship itself.
06:06As that plasma builds, we're hoping that we can bring these views back to you.
06:11But you can see the telemetry there on the right-hand side of your screen.
06:15If you watch closely, you can see the speed decelerating.
06:18Again, that's the friction of the atmosphere resulting in this plasma field, excuse me, the blanket that is potentially blocking the Starlink terminals right now.
06:29So we'll bring those views back to you if we get them.
06:31But right now, for those of you that have recently joined, Starship is currently re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
06:38This is super exciting because it's the furthest and fastest that Starship has ever flown.
06:43It's just absolutely incredible.
06:45Major test milestone, something we wanted to accomplish on flight 2, getting to it today.
06:49So just awesome.
06:50Now, we actually have some heat shields here.
06:54So these are what's doing all the work on Starship right now.
06:59There are 18,000 hexagonal heat shields like these.
07:03So this one that I have is flat.
07:06Like this is what would be positioned on the flaps of Starship, whereas Shiva has something a little different.
07:11Yeah, the one I have would be on the curved surfaces of Starship.
07:15I'll just put it in frame here.
07:17So we've got these attached at various points around the vehicle.
07:20Like you said, Kate, 18,000 of these tiles are around.
07:23And they're doing the work to make sure that the structure of the vehicle doesn't carry all that thermal load.
07:28So we can recover the vehicles eventually and get to rapid reuse on them.
07:33They're really lightweight.
07:34They sound a little different than I would have expected them to.
07:38But they are ceramic.
07:40And these are what's helping Starship survive through this period of entry.
07:46We're not sure how far we're going to make it.
07:49Again, this is the furthest that we've gotten in our test flight.
07:52But the further we fly, the more data that we can get.
07:55And that's ultimately the measure of success here, which I mean, I think today has been a huge success given where we've gone and how much further we've gotten with both the booster and Starship.
