With a rousing success under its belt from its last test flight, SpaceX is now preparing for the next launch of its giant Starship rocket.
The company performed a static test fire of the Super Heavy booster slated for Starship’s 11th launch. Secured to the launch stand at SpaceX’s Starbase manufacturing and test facility in Texas, the booster, B15, fired its 33 Raptor engines for about 10 seconds Sunday, Sept. 7, which was posted in videos on SpaceX’s profile on X.
The test comes less than two weeks after Starship’s Flight Test 10, which, for the first time, completed each of its objectives in a major win for SpaceX as they develop the rocket for operational missions.
Boosters are typically test fired in the days and weeks leading up to launches, and are part of final assessments to ensure vehicle safety ahead of liftoff. This test signals a quick turnaround for SpaceX as it prepares Starship for Flight Test 11.
SpaceX sought a similar cadence before Flight 10, but mishaps during Starship’s upper stage testing for Ship 36 caused an explosion on the test stand during cryogenic fueling. The delay bumped Ship 37 up in the line, slating it to fly Starship’s most successful flight to date.
Flight 10 lifted off from Starbase on Aug. 26. The stacked vehicle executed a successful hot-stage separation between Super Heavy and Ship, resulting in the booster’s soft splashdown, and Ship’s orbital insertion, payload deployment, atmospheric reentry and soft splashdown of its own in the Indian Ocean.
Flight 10’s achievements were a significant step forward for the stalled program, and this weekend’s B15 Super Heavy static fire engine test puts SpaceX on an pace to possibly launch Starship Flight Test 11 before the end of the month.
The test marked a welcome victory for SpaceX and the budding launch vehicle, which suffered in-flight upper stage explosions during each of this year’s three Starship launches leading up to Flight 10. Those mishaps dealt a blow to SpaceX’s development timeline for Starship, which has been promised to be operational in time for NASA’s Artemis 3 moon mission.
Starship is contracted as Artemis 3’s Human Landing System (HLS), tasked with landing the first astronauts on the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972. NASA’s new lunar program currently has Artemis 3 slated for 2027, but whether Starship will be ready in time is uncertain.
The launch vehicle was recently criticized by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, during a Senate Committee hearing on Sept. 3, during which he cited Starship’s several unfulfilled milestones left on its plate.
Starship can’t get to the moon all on its own. By the time it gets to orbit, the vehicle will have exhausted too much fuel to make trip. To help it reach the moon, SpaceX is planning up to a dozen additional Starship launches to refuel the Artemis 3 lunar lander in orbit, but hasn’t yet demonstrated transferring the cryogenic fuel between vehicles. In fact, no one has ever done that.
SpaceX also needs to successfully land Starship on the moon for an uncrewed demonstration mission before NASA will qualify the vehicle for astronauts.
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