SpaceX is another step closer to the 11th flight of the mighty Starship rocket after it completed a test fire of the Ship’s engines on Monday.
The test, which took place at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas, appeared to go without a hitch, suggesting the 11th Starship flight could take place by the end of this month, or early next.
NASASpaceflight shared footage of the Ship’s engine test on X. The static engine fire lasted a matter of seconds, with the video showing it from multiple angles.
Multi angle replays from the various @NASASpaceflight Starbase Live cameras of S38’s 6 engine static fire test. While the test looked nominal, it remains to be seen if SpaceX plans further testing or if S38 and the pad will move to prepare for flight 11.https://t.co/wTIGOIV9NO pic.twitter.com/MZ5PT6vOYT
SpaceX also shared its own footage of the engine test.
Starship completes a full-duration static fire ahead of the eleventh flight test pic.twitter.com/lPXP9gQRAU
SpaceX performed a similar test on the Starship’s first stage — the Super Heavy booster — earlier this month.
If data from the Ship’s test on Monday looks good, then the upper-stage spacecraft will be placed on top of the Super Heavy in readiness for launch from Starbase.
The Starship made its inaugural flight in April 2023, and most recently launched last month, on August 26. The rocket’s performance has been mixed, but progress has been made over the last couple of years, with the 10th flight last month easily one of its most successful to date.
The Starship generates around 17 million pounds of thrust at launch, making it the most powerful rocket ever to fly. Once testing is complete and the Starship becomes fully certified, NASA will use the 121-meter-tall vehicle for crew and cargo missions to the moon and possibly even Mars.
But there are still many challenges ahead before SpaceX’s rocket is ready for prime time.
Indeed, just last week, NASA safety officials said that SpaceX’s lunar lander, which is supposed to be used to land astronauts on the lunar surface in the Artemis III mission currently scheduled for 2027, could be delayed by “years” as SpaceX works to ready the lander, which will be a modified Ship called the Human Landing System (HLS).
In the Artemis III mission, four astronauts will head to lunar orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft launched by NASA’s new SLS rocket. SpaceX will send the HLS to lunar orbit using the Super Heavy booster. Two astronauts will then transfer to the HLS for the descent to the moon. The vehicle will then return the astronauts to the Orion, which will bring the crew back to Earth.
With all that in mind, NASA — and SpaceX too, for that matter — will be keen to see the Starship make some serious progress in the coming months.
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.