It’s not yet clear how long SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle will remain grounded as engineers investigate a rare launch failure last week, but the next test flight of the company’s next-generation Starship appears to be on track to launch next month.
On Monday, SpaceX tested 33 Raptor engines on the Starship rocket’s Super Heavy booster at the company’s Starbase facility in South Texas. The methane-fueled engines fired for about eight seconds, long enough for SpaceX engineers to verify that all systems were operating normally. At full power, the 33 engines generated nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, twice the power of NASA’s iconic Saturn V Moon rocket.
SpaceX confirmed that the static fire test had reached its full duration and the rocket teams had exhausted methane and liquid oxygen, known as Booster 12 in the company’s inventory of ships and boosters. The upper stage for the next Starship test flight, known as Ship 30, completed the static fire of its six Raptor engines in May.
During the starship’s fourth flight on June 6, SpaceX successfully guided the Super Heavy booster back into a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico east of the starbase. The craft continued into space and completed a half circle around the planet before re-entering the atmosphere on guided propulsion in the Indian Ocean.
It was the first time that SpaceX managed to get a booster and a ship close to their destination. The Super Heavy’s landing on a water target gave SpaceX officials the confidence to try to recover the booster on the next Starbase flight, where the giant articulated arms — colloquially known as “wands” — on the launch tower will try to pick up the rocket. it will slow down until it hovers directly over the launch pad.
Kathy Lueders, SpaceX’s general manager at Starbase, told local residents last month that SpaceX was still considering whether to try to grab the booster on its next flight. The capture concept is bold and significantly different from the way SpaceX recovers Falcon 9 boosters, but SpaceX officials believe it’s the best way to recover boosters for rapid reuse. Earlier this month, SpaceX released a teaser video for the starship’s next flight, suggesting that the booster catch was back on the table.
Flight 5 Super Heavy booster all day static fire pic.twitter.com/8rF9KUdMUD
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 15, 2024
SpaceX will also use Starship’s fifth test flight to test an improved heat shield on the ship, or upper stage, after heating on reentry damaged the vehicle during descent on the previous flight last month. Technicians work in a hangar just off the launch pad, replacing thousands of ceramic tiles on the ship’s outer shell on March 30.
Once that work is complete, SpaceX will load the ship onto the booster and perform a full countdown test a few days before the first launch attempt, which could happen as early as August.
Meanwhile, the second launch pad is under construction at the Starbase. Construction crews stacked the first few segments of the lattice launch tower a short distance from the existing Starship launch pad. Within a few years, SpaceX wants to have two active launch pads in Texas and two Starship launch sites in Florida to support the growing number of Starship flights.
These Starship missions will launch Starlink Internet satellites, conduct in-orbit refueling tests, and support NASA’s Artemis lunar program.