December 2020 - South Padre Island & Starship SN8 launch

We started the month beach camping on South Padre Island, eagerly awaiting SpaceX's Starship SN8 flight. With their rapid pace of progress, stormy weather moving in, and very high tides from the full moon, we decided it was time to move to where we'd be watching the launch from. 

On the southernmost tip of South Padre Island is Isla Blanca Park, an enormous RV park with 600+ sites, over a mile of beach access, and even a waterpark! After checking the exclusion zone for the launch, we knew this park would be one of the closest places to watch, only 5 miles over water from the launch site!

We'd seen 2 previous SpaceX launches live in Florida - Crew Dragon in-flight abort test (Check out the Nasa stream or blog post), and a Falcon 9 Starlink launch. Starship is a beast in comparison, and the scale alone is impressive. 

Everyday Astronaut (Tim Dodd) shared these great visuals showing the size difference:

This flight would make history as the first high-altitude Starship launch, aiming for around 40,000 feet. It would also be the first test of their insane belly-flop landing maneuver. They planned to cut off the engines shortly after launch and let the rocket free fall on it's side, then flip back over and restart the engines for landing. Nothing even close to this had been done before, and Elon himself only gave it a 1/3 chance of landing in one piece. So, not only were we excited to witness a historic flight, but we'd likely get to see an epic explosion.

We arrived at Isla Blanca Park and picked a spot outside of the main gate, near the tent camping area. The weekly rate including water & electricity was $150, or $30 per night. Our site was next to the marina and we could see boats from our windows. We also saw countless pelicans, jellyfish, and some epic sunsets. 

My favorite view of all was seeing Starship SN8 right outside of our bedroom window! 

(Watching footage from NasaSpaceflight's stream, the best coverage for Starship news!)

We could even see frost forming on it during testing!

The view from the beach inside the park was fantastic! We could easily see Starship SN8 and even the highbay building where the next Starship (SN9) was almost finished! 

We found a ton of Portuguese man o' war washed up on the shore and in between the rocks.

One of the locals active in the space community tweeted a call for everyone to help clean trash from the beach. We were excited for an opportunity to help the environment, and really enjoyed seeing everyone pitch in. Over 25 people came out to help and collected 40 bags of trash!

The 8th was the first chance to launch, and people from all over gathered to watch!

We had a great time exploring the beach and did a little fishing while we waited!

dolphin!

Kayak owner in the picture had paddled into the exclusion zone and was told by a police boat to move.

We were watching SpaceX's webcast live on my phone, and after hours of waiting it was finally about to launch! The final ten second countdown began, and the excitement in the air was palpable. Then, with only 1.3 seconds left to go, the countdown abruptly stopped.

So many things have to go right for a rocket to launch. Not only the many complex components of the rocket itself, but also winds/weather, airspace clearance, road closures, FAA approval, and so much more. We enjoyed our day at the beach with other space enthusiasts anyway, and were hopeful everything would come together soon.

Luckily, they were able to try again the next day and our waiting finally paid off with a spectacular view!

Liftoff!

Cloud formed by hovering just before engine cut off

Freefall & Engine relight

Perfect flip maneuver!

Almost to the landing pad!

maybe...

Kyle captured the full experience on video.

SpaceX has WAY closer footage. Click HERE to watch history in the making!

Besides the last few moments, the flight had been a resounding success! We'd watched in awe as the giant rocket free-fell and couldn't believe our eyes when the engines relit and it gently flipped back over, slowing right above the landing pad.

We knew that was precisely the plan, but it was so unbelievable that it worked - like something out of a sci-fi movie happening right before our eyes.

We even thought it landed upright for about a millisecond, until we saw the fireball.

Musk shared his excitement on Twitter and explained what caused the rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) tweeting, "Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!”.

The road was closed until 5pm the next day, but we were there the moment that it opened. Here is the first view we got of the remains of SN8:

WOW. Seeing the rocket standing tall on the launch stand previously was otherworldly, but this was mind-blowing. Most of SN8 made it on the landing pad, but there were smaller parts everywhere and SpaceX workers rushing to clean them up. I was still trying to take it all in when we noticed a dark Tesla with a group of important looking people gathered around. It was Elon!!!!!

He'd come to check on things, and was wrapping up when we arrived. He got in the Tesla and started to pull out onto the road, right past where we were standing. Kyle and I had been off to the side, trying to see what was going on while staying out of the way of the workers, and we just stood there in awe as the car pulled forward and we saw Elon sitting in the back seat. He gave us a big smile and waved as he rode past, and we enthusiastically waved back. 

We stood there in shock for a moment, wondering if that had really just happened. A few pieces of SN8 made it all the way across the street, landing in the open field. We watched workers use a cut-off saw to break the pieces down, then carry them back across the road to the launch site. 

We weren't far from where they crossed, and got a close view of some of the parts. It was so surreal to be standing there near the scattered rocket pieces and almost felt like a dream, that we shouldn't be allowed so close and would be tackled any minute by security. The workers were in good spirits though. They smiled at us as they passed by and we could hear the excitement in their conversations.

Piece of SN8 cut for moving, laying on the side of the road. 

They loaded most of the parts on a trailer.

The cover of this tent was damaged by the explosion.

Last sunset with SN8

View from Boca Chica Beach! Can you see the nosecone still on the pad?

On our way back we saw SN9 in the highbay getting ready for her turn to fly. As epic as SN8's flight was, we might just have to stick around to watch!

For more pictures of Starship SN8, check out last month's post about our first visit to the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site!