space x
It’s no secret that Elon Musk has big ambitions for SpaceX’s giant rocket, Starship. This, with many changes and upgrades, would carry cargo and people across the solar system, build settlements on Mars, make humans a multi-planetary species, and achieve the billionaire’s long-held dream. Musk says.
Of course, that’s a long shot. SpaceX is still working to get Starship into orbit, or close to it, and it appears possible this year. The company will then begin launching Starlink satellites on Starship missions, while also testing the space refueling technology needed to turn Starship into NASA’s human-rated lunar lander.
SpaceX’s South Texas team is moving toward its third full-scale Starship test flight. On December 20, Starship’s upper stage, scheduled for its next test flight, completed a test firing of its Raptor engine at the Starbase launch site on the Texas Gulf Coast. Nine days later, the 33-engine super heavy booster was ignited on the launch pad for a unique static fire test. On the same day, SpaceX reheated the Starship upper stage on a test stand next to the launch pad.
Once these milestones were completed, the ground team returned the booster to the hangar for final pre-flight checks and reconfiguration. Ships also need to roll back into high bays.
It could be weeks before SpaceX has both vehicles ready for flight, but the company has not released any updates on lessons learned from the previous Starship test flight in November. The flight was largely successful, with his 33 engines mounted on super heavy boosters clearly showing perfect performance during the launch. The Starship’s upper stage reached space and detonated itself over the Gulf of Mexico. The booster exploded during a maneuver to return to Earth for a controlled splashdown at sea.
The company’s engineers want to understand the causes of these problems and fix them. The Federal Aviation Administration will then have to approve SpaceX’s study of the last Starship flight before issuing a new commercial launch license. When Starship flies again, it will approach orbital speed and try to reach enough speed to almost circumnavigate the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere near Hawaii.
Validating the performance of Starship’s thermal tiles during atmospheric reentry will be a valuable learning experience for SpaceX, but Starship must first have a completely successful launch. This is just the beginning of his privately funded Starship program.