SpaceX’s Starship V3—still a work in progress—mostly successful on first flight

SpaceX 星舰 V3 首飞：虽仍处于改进阶段，但基本取得成功

SpaceX launched the first test flight of its upgraded Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster Friday, with mostly positive results. The powerful rocket, propelled by 33 methane-fueled main engines, climbed away from SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility in South Texas at 5:30 pm CDT (6:30 pm EDT; 22:30 UTC) Friday. Within a few seconds, the 408-foot-tall (124-meter) rocket, the largest ever built, cleared the launch tower and turned onto an eastward heading over the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX 于周五发射了升级版星舰（Starship）火箭及其超重型助推器的首次测试飞行，结果基本令人满意。这枚强大的火箭由 33 台甲烷燃料主发动机驱动，于周五下午 5:30（中部夏令时间，即 EDT 下午 6:30；UTC 22:30）从 SpaceX 位于德克萨斯州南部的星际基地（Starbase）发射升空。在短短几秒钟内，这枚高达 408 英尺（124 米）、史上最大的火箭便脱离了发射塔，转向东向飞行，飞越墨西哥湾。

Starship splashed down on target in the Indian Ocean a little more than an hour later to conclude the first flight of the latest version of SpaceX’s stainless steel mega-rocket. Starship V3 fared better on its debut than the first flights of Starship V1 and V2 in 2023 and 2025. Both past versions of Starship broke apart during launch on their inaugural flights.

一个多小时后，星舰在印度洋预定海域溅落，完成了 SpaceX 这款不锈钢巨型火箭最新版本的首次飞行。星舰 V3 的首秀表现优于 2023 年和 2025 年的 V1 和 V2 版本。此前两个版本的星舰在各自的首次飞行中均在发射阶段解体。

SpaceX officials appeared pleased with the performance of Starship V3 on Friday. Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, congratulated his engineers with a post on X: “Congratulations SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch & landing! You scored a goal for humanity.”

SpaceX 官员对星舰 V3 周五的表现感到满意。公司创始人兼首席执行官埃隆·马斯克在 X 上发文祝贺他的工程师们：“祝贺 SpaceX 团队完成了史诗般的星舰 V3 首飞与着陆！你们为人类进了一球。”

“Congrats and a huge thank you to the SpaceX team that always delivers,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s second in command, wrote in an X post. “This was an incredible first flight of a brand new vehicle. Our collective future flying amongst the stars has become so much closer.”

“祝贺并衷心感谢始终不负众望的 SpaceX 团队，”SpaceX 二号人物格温·肖特韦尔（Gwynne Shotwell）在 X 上写道，“这是一次令人难以置信的全新载具首飞。我们共同的星际飞行未来已变得更加触手可及。”

Leaders at NASA, relying on SpaceX to provide Starship as a human-rated Moon lander, were closely watching the launch. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was in Texas to witness the launch in person. He lauded SpaceX for a “hell of a V3 Starship launch.”

NASA 的领导层一直依赖 SpaceX 提供载人登月版星舰，因此密切关注着此次发射。NASA 局长贾里德·艾萨克曼（Jared Isaacman）亲临德克萨斯州见证了发射过程。他称赞 SpaceX 完成了一次“极其震撼的星舰 V3 发射”。

Starship’s 12th test flight was a long time coming. The last Starship test flight took off last October. The gap of more than seven months was the longest interval between Starship flights since the program’s first full-scale launch in April 2023. SpaceX used the time to complete construction and activation of a second launch pad at Starbase as engineers steered Starship V3 through ground testing, which had its own share of setbacks.

星舰的第 12 次测试飞行姗姗来迟。上一次星舰测试飞行是在去年 10 月进行的。超过七个月的间隔是自 2023 年 4 月该项目首次全尺寸发射以来最长的一次。SpaceX 利用这段时间完成了星际基地第二个发射台的建设和启用，同时工程师们引导星舰 V3 完成了地面测试，期间也经历了不少挫折。

What was good?

哪些方面表现出色？

So what worked on Friday’s test flight? Plenty. Most importantly, the ship’s heat shield appeared to hold up during reentry over the Indian Ocean. Onboard cameras showed the vehicle’s aerodynamic flaps intact throughout the fiery descent through the atmosphere. The heat shield and flaps didn’t always fare so well on past Starship test flights.

周五的测试飞行中哪些环节表现良好？有很多。最重要的是，飞船的隔热罩在印度洋上空重返大气层时表现稳健。机载摄像头显示，在穿越大气层的炽热下降过程中，载具的气动襟翼保持完好。在以往的星舰测试飞行中，隔热罩和襟翼的表现并不总是如此理想。

Starship executed a series of banking maneuvers on the way toward the splashdown zone northwest of Australia, simulating the path future ships will take returning to landings at Starbase. That all went well, with the descent culminating in a dramatic maneuver to flip from horizontal to vertical. A final landing burn with the ship’s Raptor engines downshifted from three to two, then to a single engine as the rocket settled to a gentle water landing.

星舰在前往澳大利亚西北部溅落区的途中执行了一系列倾斜机动，模拟了未来飞船返回星际基地着陆的路径。这一切进展顺利，下降过程最终以一个从水平转为垂直的戏剧性机动告终。在最后的着陆点火阶段，飞船的猛禽发动机从三台减至两台，最后减至单台，火箭最终平稳地溅落在水面上。

Drones and buoy cameras recorded live views of the on-target splashdown. As expected, the ship—wider than and nearly as long a Boeing 777 jetliner—tipped over and exploded in a fireball, putting an exclamation point on V3’s trip halfway around the world from the Texas Gulf Coast.

无人机和浮标摄像头实时记录了精准溅落的画面。正如预期的那样，这艘比波音 777 客机更宽、长度几乎相当的飞船在溅落后倾倒并化作一团火球，为 V3 从德克萨斯墨西哥湾沿岸出发、环绕半个地球的旅程画上了句号。

Earlier in the flight, SpaceX demonstrated Starship V3’s improved payload deployment mechanism. The system is tailored for releasing SpaceX’s flat-packed Starlink Internet satellites. SpaceX tested the Pez-like deployment system on past test flights, but upgrades on Starship V3 allow the mechanism to release satellites at a faster rate.

在飞行早些时候，SpaceX 展示了星舰 V3 改进后的载荷部署机制。该系统专为释放 SpaceX 的扁平堆叠式星链（Starlink）互联网卫星而设计。SpaceX 在过去的测试飞行中测试过这种类似“贝兹糖果机”（Pez-like）的部署系统，但星舰 V3 的升级使其能够以更快的速度释放卫星。

On Friday, the dispenser deployed 20 mockups of SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink satellites, plus two spacecraft fitted with flashlights and cameras to inspect Starship’s exterior in space. All of this worked perfectly as the ship soared to a maximum altitude of 121 miles (195 kilometers) in darkness over the South Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX says this version of Starship can haul up to 100 metric tons of payload into low-Earth orbit, more than double the capacity of Starship V2.

周五，分配器部署了 20 个 SpaceX 下一代星链卫星的模型，以及两艘配备了手电筒和摄像头的航天器，用于在太空中检查星舰的外部。当飞船在南大西洋上空的黑暗中飞至 121 英里（195 公里）的最大高度时，所有这些操作都完美运行。SpaceX 表示，此版本的星舰可将高达 100 公吨的载荷送入近地轨道，运载能力是星舰 V2 的两倍多。

Meanwhile, initial inspections of SpaceX’s new launch pad at Starbase, used for the first time Friday, showed the facility weathered the intensity of liftoff with no significant problems. This is a promising sign for SpaceX’s plans for new launch pads at Cape Canaveral, Florida, which use the new Starbase pad as a design template.

与此同时，对 SpaceX 周五首次使用的星际基地新发射台的初步检查显示，该设施经受住了发射时的巨大冲击，没有出现重大问题。这对 SpaceX 在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角建设新发射台的计划来说是一个积极信号，因为这些新发射台正是以星际基地的新发射台为设计模板的。

What needs more work?

哪些方面仍需改进？

Something caused two Raptor engines—one of 33 on the Super Heavy booster and one of six on Starship itself—to fail during Friday’s launch sequence. Raptor failures are nothing new for SpaceX, but this flight marked the first use of the company’s upgraded Raptor 3, a redesign with higher thrust, lighter weight, and improved efficiency.

周五的发射过程中，两台猛禽（Raptor）发动机出现了故障——其中一台位于超重型助推器的 33 台发动机中，另一台位于星舰本身的 6 台发动机中。猛禽发动机故障对 SpaceX 来说并不新鲜，但此次飞行是该公司首次使用升级版的猛禽 3 型发动机，该型号经过重新设计，具有更高的推力、更轻的重量和更高的效率。

Collectively, the 33 Raptor engines on the booster produced up to 18 million pounds of thrust at full throttle, twice the power of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket used on last month’s Artemis II mission. Starship and Super Heavy have engine-out capability, meaning they can recover from an early shutdown of an engine. Both stages proved this Friday.

助推器上的 33 台猛禽发动机在全油门状态下总共产生了高达 1800 万磅的推力，是 NASA 上个月在“阿尔忒弥斯 2 号”任务中所使用的太空发射系统（SLS）火箭推力的两倍。星舰和超重型助推器具备“单发失效”能力，意味着它们可以在发动机提前关闭的情况下进行恢复。周五的飞行中，两个级段都证明了这一点。

First, an engine in the outer ring on the Super Heavy booster shut down prematurely shortly after liftoff. A few moments later, an outer engine on the Starship upper stage cut off soon after the ship and booster separated from one another high over the Gulf. The ship compensated by burning its five remaining engines a little longer than usual, and the rocket was still able to reach its planned trajectory. The booster, however, hurtled to…

首先，超重型助推器外环的一台发动机在升空后不久提前关闭。片刻之后，星舰上面级的一台外侧发动机在飞船与助推器于海湾高空分离后不久也停止了工作。飞船通过延长其余五台发动机的燃烧时间进行了补偿，火箭最终仍能达到预定轨道。然而，助推器却冲向了……