SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket lifted off on its 11th test flight on October 13, and the mission proved a big success. So why have we heard little about the world’s most powerful rocket since then?
Well, as far as we know, development of the Starship — comprising the first-stage Super Heavy and upper-stage Ship — is still going according to plan, with no major difficulties reported as the SpaceX team prepares for the 12th test.
As the saying goes, no news is good news, and that seems to apply here. While SpaceX is hoping to increase the frequency of Starship launches to as many as once every two weeks, that’s unlikely to begin until some time next year, once SpaceX has readied its new launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At the current time, all Starship launches take place from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas.
There’s no word yet on the date of the 12th test, but the flight will be a significant one as it’ll involve the third version of the Starship. The slightly taller, more advanced vehicle will be the first Starship capable of performing full orbital launches and recoveries, taking SpaceX a huge step toward its first operational launches to the moon.
SpaceX is also in the process of moving its launch operations to Pad B, which is still under construction at Starbase and will likely be used for the 12th test flight. Pad B will feature a more durable flame trench capable of safely managing Starship’s powerful exhaust. It’ll also enable faster and sustained launch capabilities than Pad A.
There’s clearly plenty of hard work ahead. SpaceX’s Starship faces a number of major technical challenges to get it ready for its first highly anticipated operational mission, Artemis III, which is set to use a modified Ship to return NASA astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2027.
SpaceX won the contract for the Artemis III lander in 2021, but acting NASA chief Sean Duffy recently caused alarm at the company when he raised the idea or reopening bids over concerns that the Starship won’t be ready in time. SpaceX responded soon after with a plan for a “simplified” Artemis III mission.
It may seen like a quiet period for the Starship, but behind the scenes you can be sure the engineers are as busy as ever getting everything ready for the 12th test, which many expect to take place early next year.
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.