There’s nothing more photogenic than the world’s most powerful rocket. While conditions made photographing last week’s Starship Flight 4 difficult for the press, to SpaceX’s cameras, it was glorious. Here are five Starship wallpapers taken by SpaceX’s cameras, both on the ground and on the rocket.
On June 6, SpaceX launched its fourth Starship rocket from its development and launch facility at Starbase, Texas. Starship is the world’s most powerful rocket and the first designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
1. Fueling
Coming in at about 22 stories tall, Starship is built using stainless steel (which gives it its shiny exterior) and powered by 39 Raptor engines (33 on the booster and 9 on the ship). Like other next generation rockets, SpaceX has dropped the use of RP-1 (a highly refined kerosene) for fuel and replaced it with methane, which when burned, mostly leaves behind just water vapor.
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SunriseDownload
Fueling of the rocket started in the early hours of June 6 and took about 50 minutes to complete, about the same time as it takes to fuel the much smaller Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s workhorse launcher.
SpaceX brings in all of the methane, oxygen, and other consumables by truck. With the amount of tests SpaceX conducts before each launch, the weeks leading up to liftoff are filled with non-stop deliveries to Starbase.
2-4. Liftoff
SpaceX’s fourth Starship rocket lifted off right at the opening of its launch window at 7:50 A.M. CT with zero issues in the count. This compares to other rockets, decades out of development, that can still take over a week to get everything in order.
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Liftoff 1Download
Liftoff 2Download
Liftoff 3Download
SpaceX’s Starship rocket hit all of its Flight 4 objectives, with the booster making a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico several minutes after liftoff. For the next mission Elon Musk wants to attempt catch the booster with the launch site’s “chopsticks” arms. You can see these arms during liftoff in Starship wallpaper number one and two. This would be a major step forward in proving another new piece of technology Starship is developing.
5. Reentry
Speaking of new technology, the biggest win for SpaceX during last week’s launch was the safe reentry and splashdown of Ship 29. This has to be one of the best Starship wallpapers out there for sure.
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ReentryDownload
For the second time, we’ve been treated to some of the most breathtaking views of Starship during reentry thanks to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. Added terminals on the rocket are used for communication and downlink from the rocket.
Thanks to Starlink’s high speeds, we got high-definition views from cameras on the rocket not just during flight but during reentry. In this Starship wallpaper, you can see the hot plasma that forms around the spacecraft during reentry. Thanks to Starship’s large size, there’s an opening behind the vehicle that allows its Starlink terminal to transmit to orbiting satellites. Usually the plasma overcomes the spacecraft, blocking any communication until it gets lower in the atmosphere.
Flight 4 will go down as a major step forward in Starship’s development. Next, SpaceX will be able to do more with its testing campaign, such as reaching orbit, testing refueling techniques, and maybe even start deploying satellites.
If you need help setting up the Starship wallpapers as dynamic wallpapers on iOS, here’s a great guide.
