SpaceX is edging toward the 11th flight of its Starship rocket as it prepares to take the upper-stage Ship to the pad for a static fire test.
NASASpaceflight shared a video (below) of the Ship on the transport stand just ahead of it being rolled to Pad 1 at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas.
Starship Flight 11: Ship 38 is on the transport stand and readying to roll to Pad 1 for its Static Fire test campaign.https://t.co/e3xbqPo4OD pic.twitter.com/BIOp8p8iJG
SpaceX test fired the first-stage Super Heavy booster on September 7, so once the Ship has been gone through the same procedure, the spaceflight company will be eager to proceed with the 11th launch.
While SpaceX has yet to share any firm dates regarding the 11th flight, recent reports have suggested that it’s targeting later this month or early next for launch.
The Starship launches are a spectacular sight, with the Super Heavy generating a record-breaking 17 million pounds of thrust as it leaves the pad, with all 33 of its Raptor engines firing at full power to get the 121-meter-tall vehicle airborne.
The Starship rocket last flew on August 26 in a flight deemed a big success, with both the Super Heavy and the Ship making soft, controlled landings on water at the end of their flights.
Once fully certified, the rocket will be used by NASA to send crew and cargo to the moon, and it could also fly the first humans to Mars.
But SpaceX faces many challenges to get the rocket ready for such ambitious missions. For example, it has to be able to land the Ship back at base, a feat that it could attempt for the first time next year. Getting the Starship to orbit is also on the to-do list, as up to now its flights have only been suborbital.
Still, the team has made steady progress since the Starship’s first flight in 2023, so few would bet against it reaching its lofty goals.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.