In depth investigative, this is KXAN News.
Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining us here on
KXAN News at Four.
I will Dupree here with senior science reporter Erik Hendrickson.
What we're showing you right now is the launch of
one of Spacex's Starships.
This is a launch that is happening right now along
the Texas coast near Brownsville.
Eric, as we're watching this play out right now, tell
us a little bit about this device that's being blasted
off.
Yeah, this rocket is really, really cool.
It's a super cool rocket.
It's two phases.
So what you're seeing now is the heavy booster that's
launching up at the very tip.
There is the actual Starship rocket.
And what's cool about the Starship rocket, it's what we're
going to use to go to the moon and Mars
in the future.
But we need to be able to get it into
space first.
So this is the sixth attempt to get this ship
into space.
And what they're hoping to do today is the heavy
boosters, gain it up into the atmosphere, is going to
release from Starship, and then Starship's going to try to
ignite its engines in space.
It hasn't done that yet.
There's been a few issues in the past.
So fingers crossed this is the day that actually happens.
Yeah.
And again, if you're just joining us, we're showing you
a live picture from near Brownsville, where Spacex's Starship has
launched off just a few moments ago.
What we do know is that they're in South Texas.
President-elect Donald Trump is watching this launch alongside Elon Mosk,
who is, of course, the owner and the person behind
this company there.
And Eric, remind us again, this booster is going to
help a mission potentially to Mars.
And as we're showing you a live look there at
even Senator Ted Cruz and president-elect Trump, joined by several
others there watching this launch.
Yeah, it's super cool.
This part of the Artemis mission, it will be used
on those missions to the moon and Mars in the
future.
The heavy booster that you see, the thing that's lit
up right now, this is part one of two.
The second part's on the very front.
You can't really see that super well at this distance
at this point.
So the Heavy booster is really cool because it can
launch it up into space without fuel.
So then the Starship, which is the head of the,
you know, the nose cone of this rocket, could then
take us to the next place.
What's also really cool is I believe it's called the
Meccazilla Tower is the tower at SpaceX.
When the Heavy booster separates from the top there from
the actual Starship, it's supposed to fall down and be
caught by this Meccazilla tower.
And it succeeded last time.
Yeah.
So fingers crossed it doesn't do.
It's so cool, Right.
Right.
So it's supposed to come basically back down to Earth
and park again in that device.
SpaceX has been really good about re entering rockets and
having them land.
Up until recently, they've done it at sea.
The Falcon 9 rockets, they land at sea on this
big platform.
These now it's it's a catch mechanism.
It's a big robotic arm comes out now.
Yeah.
Well, I'm so glad that you were here to kind
of walk us through this and showing this pretty exciting
development there in South Texas.
What we're watching again, is the SpaceX launch of the
Starship booster.
Is that it blowing up?
I don't know.
Well, we're showing you this live picture, so who knows
what's happening there.
It almost looks like a Sonic boom has gone off
the line.
It's a separation right there.
There you go.
Yeah, it's separated right there.
So the booster is falling upwards.
And the Starship itself is the little white dot close
to the bottom of your screen.
And there, there's a view from Starship right there.
And you're going to test to see if they actually
get the engines going in space, which takes a little
bit more, a little more physics going on there.
And reportedly, there's a lot of cheering happening right now.
So obviously, they're very excited about what's been unfolding here
just above South Texas.
Yeah.
It's so neat.
It's actually, hopefully it works because we really need this.
The plan is to go by the end of the
decade to the moon and to start kind of colonizing
the moon.
And we need vessels like this to get up there
and land and kind of we have a space station
we're going to build around the moon, all these different
steps that takes before we even get to Mars.
Live on the moon long term.
And this is part of that journey.
It's a big rocket.
It can take a lot up there.
Wow.
Is that it igniting right there?
Is it breaking the sound barrier?
That's so cool.
Still watching this live at the moment.
And again, Eric, what we're going to hopefully see is
this come back down to the Earth and then reattach
to a device there.
Yes, that'll be the heavy booster will fall.
This is Starship itself we're looking at and it looks
like it is igniting.
So everything should be going well.
It did not explode.
A few of these have exploded.
That's why I'm saying that, right?
This one looks like it's very successful.
This is the sixth attempt to get this up in
the atmosphere, the first attempt to get the engines going
in space.
And it looks like that's happening.
Yeah, it's amazing that's it's going on again.
It's like first steps to the to the moon, hot
stages of injeties.
That's what we've just been told.
So, yeah, things are working out just as they hope.
These are the steps that this launch is involving to
back down there on Earth.
Watching all of this unfold is, as we mentioned a
few moments ago, President-elect Donald Trump alongside Texas Senator Ted
Cruz and of course, Elon Musk, who is the person
who is funding this company, SpaceX, trying to get these
boosters and eventually advance this technology enough to create more
Space Flight for for the US, right?
There's so much space industry in our state.
NASA has John Space Center based here.
We have Firefly Aerospace based here in Cedar Park, Blue
Origin launched out.
So Texas and space go hand in hand.
It makes sense to have the next step of our
evolution into the stars happening in our lovely state.
And you get to see it live, which is pretty
amazing.
Look at that.
I like how my favorite part about seeing space is
just how pitch black it is.
You think there'd be tons of stars so gorgeous to
be able to look through that vantage point back down
to Earth as that booster is there up in space.
And the ultimate plan is for this, once it's coming
back to Earth, it's going to head towards the Indian
Ocean where it's going to land there.
And I believe it's going to land in daylight hours
in the Indian Ocean.
He's heard no go on the catch.
The heavy booster is not gonna be caught by the
tower.
OK, that's the latest update for you all.
Again, a no go on a catch back on Earth
as we watch this all unfold live right now on
your screens there in space really, really need.
And it reminds me of like mousetrap.
You know, we have to get all the pieces to
move at the right time for the booster to be
caught.
It has to fall the right spot for the robot
arm to reach up and grab it.
And all these different steps for Starship here to land
in the in the ocean.
We're a little thing in there.
That's all these different steps.
So we got a few of them out of the
way.
We're not going to get the cool robot catch today,
but next time.
But the fact that it's launching in space, that the
gas is, the fuel is firing off, that the Rockets
are working in space is a big deal for the
company, especially because they've had so many issues up to
this point point to get this thing working to the
top of the line.
But that's iteration.
You have to do that.
When we went through, you know, the Mercury of the
Gemini and the Apollo missions, they had those over and
over again where you took a little baby steps and
you have little failures along the way and eventually success.
So there's not really failure in the space industry.
It's just little, little failures that lead to further success,
that incremental progress that happens with these kinds of things.
Well, as we're looking live again, you can see some
sort of debris or maybe parts of the device.
They're coming back into the Earth's atmosphere.
Just give us a little bit of a moment to
watch this all unfold.
As you've been joining us, we're watching SpaceX Starship launch
from South Texas there.
There it goes.
OK.
It's trying to land.
What?
So that's it's slowing down.
It's firing its boosters to slow down.
Maybe it will catch.
Let's see.
I don't know.
It's going to.
Or is it just going to plummet in the ocean?
Y'all?
There it goes.
And that looks like it's landed in the ocean there,
right?
Yeah.
Let's get about the ocean.
So it's landing pulled out.
It's.
So that's pretty good.
I didn't get the full catch that we we like
to see.
But hey, the fact that that's one thing I love
about Spacex's rockets as they do that cool slow down
gesture where it fires the rocket off and slows down.
That's how they're able to land it on those ships
at sea.
And that's all this thing.
We'll do it later on.
Well, this is truly fascinating to watch everybody.
So again, we are going to be monitoring this live
feed, but we want to get to some other news
and stories of the day.
So again, stay with us as we're monitoring the situation
there, just in Brownsville where the SpaceX launch has just
happened moments ago.