SpaceX, which launched more than 100 small payloads Tuesday from California and 2 commercial moon landers early Wednesday from Florida, both on Falcon 9 rockets, has now prepared a massive Super Heavy-Starship to launch from Texas Gulf Coast for the seventh test flight of the program.
Weather permitting, SpaceX Boca Chica’s manufacturing and flight testing facility is scheduled to lift off at 5 p.m.
The Super Heavy-Starship rocket is the most powerful ever built. It generates 16 million pounds at liftoff, using 33 Raptor engines that burn 40,000 pounds per second of propellant.
The Super Heavy first stage, as in previous tests, was expected to lift the Starship upper stages out of the dense lower atmospheric layer before falling off and returning to the launch site to recover. The Starship is powered by six Raptor engine to reach space.
For the initial test flights, Starships will not try to reach orbit. They loop half-way around the globe and descend through a hellish fire of atmospheric friction, before flipping their noses up to splash down in the Indian Ocean, tail-first.
SpaceX’s third attempt at catching the Super Heavy stage was to be made after the Starship had been propelled out of the lower atmospheric layer. The giant mechanical chopsticks on the launch tower were used to grab the Super Heavy stage as it fell.
The successful catch of the was a sight that thousands of tourists and residents cheered. The Super Heavy that was used to launch the flight the following month, however, had to be diverted because of damage to the sensors on the tower. These were required to guide the descending rocket booster into place.
SpaceX engineers believe that the new sensors will have stronger shielding, preventing such damage. They also expect to be able to recover Super Heavy boosters as regularly as they do with their Falcon 9 rockets.
One of the 33 Raptor engine on the Super Heavy was used in a previous test to show its capability to perform multiple missions.
The majority of the upgrades that were tested on Wednesday were part of what SpaceX described as a “new-generation” Starship.
Starship “New Generation”: What’s New?
The forward stabilizing fins of the upper stage have been reduced in size and repositioned so that they are less exposed to reentry heating. A new propulsion avionics was installed, as well as a redesigned fuel line and a 25% increase in propellant volume.
The new avionics includes a more powerful computer, new antennas which combine signals from Starlink satellites with GPS navigation satellites. It also features “smart” batteries and power units that drive two dozen high voltage actuators as well as redesigned navigation sensor.
SpaceX has also added more cameras to its spacecraft, including over 30 to allow direct viewing of the critical systems. Starlink satellites are used to transmit real-time data and video to the ground.
Ten Starlinks mockups were placed on the Starship in order to test the payload deployment system of the rocket. Once the Starship had reached space, 10 mockup Starlinks would be ejected, one by one, like Pez candy dispensers.
SpaceX has yet to attempt to capture a Falcon 9 upper-stage or a Starship that is returning.
The Wednesday test flight included multiple experiments that tested a variety heat shield improvements. These included metallic tiles, one with active cooling and dummy Starship catch fittings to see how they would respond to reentry heating.
SpaceX stated on its website that “this new year will transform Starship.” The company aims to bring reuse of the system online, as well as fly increasingly ambitious missions, in order to be able to launch humans and cargo into Earth orbit, to the moon and to Mars.
Super Heavy-Starship flights are critical for NASA’s Artemis lunar program. NASA has paid SpaceX to create a version of the Starship upper-stage that will carry astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2027.
SpaceX has to launch a Starship into low-Earth-orbit first, where it will rendezvous with other Starships “tankers”, dock, and refuel it autonomously. Then, the ship can blast off from Earth orbit to head to deep space.
Astronauts will launch in the Orion capsule on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, then rendezvous with the Starship orbiting the moon to make the descent.
NASA’s contract stipulates that astronauts must first test a lunar landing without a pilot before they can ride a vehicle to the surface. When that may be possible will depend on the ongoing testing program.
