Waco resident Edward Leslie is suing SpaceX, saying rocket engine testing at the company’s facility in McGregor, about 18 miles west of Waco, caused damage to his house. Specifically, he alleges that the foundation of his home has shifted due to vibrations caused by rocket engine testing at the company’s nearby Central Texas facility, KWTX reports.
16.03.2024
Starship lifts off on third test flight
Starship lifts off on its third integrated test flight March 14. Credit: SpaceX webcast
WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Starship vehicle lifted off on its third test flight March 14, making significant progress compared to its first two by achieving most of its planned test milestones.
The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the company’s Starbase site at 9:25 a.m. Eastern. The liftoff was delayed by nearly an hour and a half because of ships in restricted waters offshore. SpaceX reported no technical issues during the countdown.
The Super Heavy booster fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for nearly three minutes before executing “hot staging”, with the Starship upper stage’s engines igniting while still attached to Super Heavy before separating.
The booster then performed burns to attempt what SpaceX webcast hosts called a “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico, where it would not be recovered. However, the landing burn did not appear to go correctly, and the company later said that the booster broke apart 462 meters above the ocean after lighting several Raptor engines for a landing burn.
The Starship upper stage performed its burn, placing the vehicle onto its planned suborbital trajectory. It avoided the fate of the previous Starship launch in November, when the vehicle broke apart late in its burn after catching fire while venting propellant.
While in space on its suborbital trajectory, SpaceX opened a payload bay door that will be used on later Starship vehicles for deploying Starlink satellites. It also performed an in-space propellant transfer demonstration as part of a NASA contract where it would move propellant from one tank within the vehicle to another. SpaceX said it was evaluating the data from both tests.
SpaceX had planned to perform a brief relight of a Raptor engine on Starship about 40 minutes after liftoff, but the company said on the webcast that this test was skipped for reasons not immediately known. The company later said the engine test was called off because of the vehicle’s roll rates.
Several minutes later, the vehicle started reentry. A camera mounted on a flap on Starship provided dramatic images of the reentry, relayed through Starlink satellites. Telemetry was lost about 49 and a half minutes after liftoff when the vehicle was descending through an altitude of 65 kilometers. SpaceX later said on the webcast that it lost contact through both its own Starlink satellites as well as through NASA TDRSS data relay satellites at the same time, speculating that the vehicle may have broken up.
Reactions
While the mission did not achieve all its test objectives, the company considered the launch a success. “What we achieved on this flight will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship,” it said in a statement.
NASA agreed with that assessment. “Congrats to SpaceX on a successful test flight! Starship has soared into the heavens,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson posted on social media. The agency is closely following Starship’s development since it awarded contracts to SpaceX worth about $4 billion to develop versions of Starship for its Human Landing System program to be used starting with Artemis 3 as soon as late 2026.
“Congratulations to our colleagues at SpaceX on their third Starship flight test!” said Cathy Koerner, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development. “Lessons learned from this milestone take us one step closer to returning astronauts to the lunar surface with Human Landing Systems provided by U.S. industry.”
There was praise across the Atlantic as well. “SpaceX continues to push the boundaries and the U.S. continues to set a model for how public and private can join forces to meet societal needs and boost commercialization within the space industry,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, noting that his agency was drawing from that experience for its own upcoming launcher competition.
Updated license
The launch came after a final regulatory milestone, an update Federal Aviation Administration launch license, issued late in the day March 13. The license required an additional environmental review after SpaceX changed the vehicle’s trajectory from the first two integrated test flights, targeting a splashdown in the Indian Ocean rather than near Hawaii.
That environmental assessment revealed that SpaceX expected Starship to explosively break apart upon splashdown. While Starship would vent some propellant while in space before reentry, the assessment stated that the company expected to have 70,000 kilograms of liquid oxygen and methane propellants in its main tanks and 30,650 kilograms in “header” tanks in the nose of the vehicle.
“Starship would impact the Indian Ocean intact, horizontally, and at terminal velocity,” the environmental assessment states. “The impact would disperse settled remaining propellants and drive structural failure of the vehicle. The structural failure would immediately lead to failure of the transfer tube, which would allow the remaining liquid oxygen (LOX) and methane to mix, resulting in an explosive event.”
The assessment noted that SpaceX did not plan to recover any Starship debris or have any boats or aircraft in the area to monitor the reentry and splashdown. It added that “any debris is expected to have sufficient mass to sink to the seafloor.”
The different trajectory allowed the company to perform tests such as the first in-space firing of the Raptor engine. Flying a steeper suborbital trajectory, with a planned maximum altitude of 235 kilometers, allows a test without substantially altering the splashdown location and threatening public safety, SpaceX hosts said on the company’s launch webcast.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 22.03.2024
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SpaceX's Starship could fly again as soon as early May
SpaceX is aiming to launch the megarocket for the fourth time just six weeks or so from now.
Image credit: SpaceX)
We might not have to wait too long to see the world's most powerful rocket take to the skies again.
That vehicle, SpaceX's 400-foot-tall (122-meter-tall) Starship, conducted its third test flight last Thursday (March 14) from the company's Starbase launch site in South Texas. Starship notched a number of important milestones on that mission, but both of its stages ended up breaking apart while descending through Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceX is still analyzing data from the flight. The results will inform preparations for Starship's fourth flight, which could be just around the corner at this point.
"We'll figure out what happened on both stages" during descent "and get back to flight, hopefully in about six weeks," SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said at the Satellite 2024 conference in Washington on Tuesday (March 19).
Such a timeline would place liftoff "at the beginning part of May," she added. (Technical readiness isn't the only issue, however; SpaceX will still need to secure a launch license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing an investigation into what happened on the March 14 flight.)
The ascent phase for both of Starship's elements — its huge first-stage Super Heavy booster and 165-foot-tall (50 m) upper-stage called Ship — was "beautiful," she added.
Super Heavy also conducted a boostback burn as planned, setting itself up for splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The booster failed to execute its landing burn, however, and broke apart about 1,650 feet (500 m) above the water
Ship reached orbital velocity and was on course to hit its splashdown target in the Indian Ocean. But it too experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" (RUD, a SpaceX term of art), giving up the ghost about 50 minutes after liftoff.
That latter number is a useful shorthand for the successes achieved on Flight 3. The first two Starship test missions, which launched in April and November of last year, lasted just four minutes and eight minutes, respectively. And both of those flights ended in RUDs as well.
SpaceX has very big plans for Starship, viewing the fully reusable vehicle as the breakthrough humanity needs to make settling the moon and Mars economically feasible.
And, down the line, company founder and CEO Elon Musk sees Starship going even farther afield. He recently said that a "much larger and more advanced" version of the rocket will eventually launch on interstellar missions.
Many more test flights will be needed to get Starship on the road toward its planned ambitious future — and Flight 4 likely won't aim to make any big leaps over its predecessors, Shotwell said.
"I don't think we're going to deploy satellites on the next flight," she said at the conference. "Things are still in trade, but I think we're really going to focus on getting reentry right and making sure we can land these things where we want to land them, successfully."
Quelle: SC
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Update: 27.03.2024
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SpaceX fires up Starship rocket ahead of 4th test flight
The flight could occur as soon as early May.
A Starship upper stage performs a static fire test ahead of the vehicle's planned test flight, which will be the fourth for the Starship program. This image is a screenshot from a video that SpaceX posted on X on March 25, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
SpaceX's next Starship vehicle has breathed fire ahead of its coming test flight.
A 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship upper stage just fired up all six of its Raptor engines in a full-duration "static fire" test at SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, the company announced today (March 25).
Static fires, in which engines are briefly lit while a vehicle remains anchored to the pad, are common prelaunch tests. SpaceX conducted this one to prep for the fourth Starship test flight, which could take place as soon as early May.
SpaceX is still analyzing data from the third Starship flight, which launched from Starbase on March 14.
The 400-foot-tall (122 m) megarocket — which consists of the upper stage, known as Ship, and the huge Super Heavy first-stage booster — performed quite well on that test mission, according to SpaceX.
For example, both stages aced their ascent burns, and Super Heavy conducted a successful "boostback" burn to get in position for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The booster's landing burn didn't go according to plan, however, and it ended up breaking apart about 1,650 feet (500 m) above the waves.
Ship flew for about 50 minutes and notched a number of milestones, including successfully opening and closing its payload door. But the craft broke apart during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere, so it didn't splash down in the Indian Ocean as planned.
Starship's first two test flights, in April 2023 and November 2023, ended after just four minutes and eight minutes, respectively.
SpaceX aims to conduct six or more Starship test flights this year, in an effort to get the fully reusable vehicle up and running and fast as possible.
But the timing of flights is not entirely up to the company; there are regulatory hurdles to clear as well, chiefly the securing of launch licenses from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA is currently overseeing the investigationinto what happened on Starship's third flight, and it's unclear when that work will be done.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 6.04.2024
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SpaceX moves Super Heavy booster to pad ahead of 4th Starship flight
The giant booster will likely undergo testing in the next few days.
A Starship Super Heavy booster stands on the orbital launch mount at Starbase, SpaceX's South Texas site. The company posted this photo on X on April 4, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
SpaceX is continuing to gear up for the next test flight of its Starship megarocket.
On Thursday (April 4), SpaceX announced via X that it has moved a Starship first stage, a 33-engine booster called Super Heavy, to the launch pad at its Starbase site in South Texas.
That post also shared two photos of the giant, stainless-steel booster clutched by the "chopstick" arms of the tower at Starbase's orbital launch mount.
The booster is being prepped for the fourth Starship test flight, which could launch as soon as early May. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
Super Heavy is presumably being positioned for a static fire, a prelaunch test in which the booster's 33 Raptor engines will burn for a few seconds while the vehicle remains anchored to the pad.
SpaceX has already performed static fires with the booster's partner — a 165-foot-tall (50-meter-tall) upper-stage spacecraft that will fly with this Super Heavy on the fourth Starship test flight.
That mission could launch as soon as as soon as early May, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said last month.
SpaceX is developing Starship — a fully reusable vehicle that's the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — to get people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Starship has launched three times to date: in April 2023, November 2023 and March 14 of this year. The megarocket has performed better on each successive flight, though none were fully successful.
Starship's two stages failed to separate as planned on its debut mission, and SpaceX detonated the vehicle intentionally after just four minutes. The November flight saw a good stage separation, but that mission ended eight minutes after liftoff.
The March 14 flight, however, lasted nearly 50 minutes. Starship's upper stage notched a number of milestones during that time, including opening its payload doors in space, before finally breaking apart while reentering Earth's atmosphere.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 8.04.2024
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TO MAKE LIFE MULTIPLANETARY
TO MAKE LIFE MULTIPLANETARY
The goal of SpaceX is to build the technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary. This is the first time in the 4-billion-year history of Earth that it’s possible to realize that goal and protect the light of consciousness.
At Starbase on Thursday, April 4, SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk provided an update on the company’s plans to send humanity to Mars, the best destination to begin making life multiplanetary.
All of SpaceX’s current programs, including Falcon, Dragon, Starlink, and Starship are integral to developing the technologies necessary to make missions to Mars a reality. The update included near-term priorities for Starship that will unlock its ability to be fully and rapidly reusable, the core enabler for transforming humanity’s ability to send large amounts of payload to orbit and beyond. With more flight tests, significant vehicle upgrades, and missions returning astronauts to the surface of the Moon with NASA’s Artemis Program all coming soon, excitement will continue to be guaranteed with Starship.
The talk also includes the mechanics and challenges of traveling to Mars, along with what we’re building today to enable sending around a million people and several million tonnes to the Martian surface in the years to come.
Quelle: SpaceX
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Update: 14.04.2024
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SpaceX Starship will be 500 feet tall to prepare for Mars missions, Elon Musk says
Starship reached orbital speed during its 3rd launch in March.
SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20 percent higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.
What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)
"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."
Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.
SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready — the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights — Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.
However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.
"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.
Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)
SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)
Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)
Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."
Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.
Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.
Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.
That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said — that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 22.04.2024
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It’s been one year since we’ve entered the Starship era
One year ago SpaceX launched its first fully integrated Starship rocket, which in my opinion is the start of the Starship era of spaceflight. While that mission was far from 100% successful, this new era is truly changing the way people look at the future of heavy lift rockets.
Starship developing nearing light at end of tunnel
It what was another great stroke of luck for Elon Musk, on 4/20 SpaceX successfully launched its first Starship rocket. And by “successfully launched” I mean the rocket left the pad under it’s own power, a pretty low bar.
However, this mission did have a pretty low bar for success. Musk stated weeks before launch that he was just hoping it wouldn’t blow up the launch pad the company just finished building months earlier. The rocket lifted off from Starbase, Texas and made its way just past stage separation before losing control and being terminated.
Years of successful Falcon 9 and Heavy missions caused confusion among the general public that mission was a failure, however it was just the first step of flight tests in developing the world’s largest and most powerful rocket.
One year later, I think it’s safe to say we’re seeing the light at the end of the Starship development tunnel. While launching it’s first commercial payload and being ready to do so are two very different paths, by the end of the year we could see SpaceX begin moving Starlink deployments over from Florida to Starship.
On its third flight just a few weeks ago, Starship flew through complete ascent burns on both the booster and upper stage as well as tested the Starlink payload door. While neither stage survived the return trips back to Earth, it was a major step forward for the rocket in getting as far as it did.
The next flight is expected to be the same and Musk wants to attempt a booster catch sometime in the next year. Activity has picked up on both the Gulf and East Coasts to get additional launch sites available for Starship as in the next few years, it could be a regular commercially operated rocket.
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Is the market ready for Starship?
While usually a single successful orbital mission would be required to claim commercial readiness. Starship will likely take a bit longer than just that.
First, the upper stage isn’t yet designed or tested to carry anything other than SpaceX’s Starlink flat satellites and second, the customers aren’t even ready for them yet.
The only customers either currently or soon will be sitting around waiting for Starship will be Starlink and NASA’s Artemis program. After that, companies and agencies are still developing what would even go inside it.
The general market has been moving smaller with SmallSats quickly becoming the most popular payload launched into space. They’re cheap, easy to replace, and allows you to build more. Both commercial and government stakeholders are moving deeper in this direction, though they are getting slightly larger over time but not by much.
Many of these payloads are happy using rideshare missions or dedicated launchers like Electron.
So for Starship, a rocket designed for much larger payloads, the biggest question will be who switches over for the cheaper flights. SpaceX could put together large rideshare missions and maybe that will work out.
However, I think the more likely outcome will be much different. Starship was designed for one purpose and one purpose only, Mars. Musk didn’t design or build Starship for any other reason than to make humanity multi-planetary. That is its market, and right now that market doesn’t exist.
So while many will take advantage of Starship’s lower cost to orbit, it will be and always will be built for a market that doesn’t exist: The Martian Market.
Quelle: SPACE EXPLORED
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Update: 6.05.2024
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Waco man suing SpaceX after he says rocket testing damaged his home
The Central Texas resident is pinning shifts in his home's foundation to vibrations caused by Elon Musk's spacecraft company.
US billionaire businessman and pilot Jared Isaacman flies in formation aboard a fighter jet over the SpaceX Starship spacecraft, before his third test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on March 13, 2024.
Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Another lawsuit tied to SpaceX has been filed in Texas, and this time it has to do with alleged property damage.
Leslie says his home was damaged in February 2023 from continuous vibrations and that the foundation shifts caused damage including cracks to the ceiling, brick walls and floor, as well as the interior doors not staying open. He’s seeking $250,000 to $1 million in damages from SpaceX due to negligence.
Leslie is among a growing chorus of Texans who say they’re dealing with unfavorable conditions with SpaceX as a neighbor. A couple of years ago, some McGregor residents wondered if the disruptions were getting louder and more frequent. And just last month, a family living 10 miles from the facility said a glass door at their home shattered after a sonic boom. Local Waco TV station 25 News reported that the family sent SpaceX an invoice to cover the cost and labor of replacing the door but haven’t heard back.
While the case with Leslie involves rocket testing, residents in South Texas near SpaceX’s rocket launches have said the vibrations from test flights of the company’s Starship rocket shake the foundation of their homes.
“It's exactly what an earthquake would do, and it is terrifying,” Michelle Serrano, a leader with community group Voces Unidas RGV, said during a February press conference.
“Many times this happens early in the morning. It jostles people awake. People really truly believe, and there has been commentary, indicating that people think that it's the end of times because they have never experienced anything like that before,” Serrano said. “We are living a very terrifying prospect. Our homes could collapse.”
Quelle: CHRON
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Update: 13.05.2024
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Musk sees fourth flight of SpaceX's Starship in 3-5 weeks
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft, atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket, lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr/file photo
SpaceX's Starship rocket, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, will probably have its fourth flight in 3-5 weeks, the company's Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.
"Objective is for the ship to get past max heating or at least further than last time," Musk said in response to a question about Starship.
Earlier this year, SpaceX's Starship rocket completed nearly an entire test flight through space on its third try getting farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return to Earth.
Quelle: Reuters
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Update: 18.05.2024
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SpaceX stacks Starship megarocket ahead of 4th test flight
Starship could fly again as soon as next month.
SpaceX stacks its Flight 4 Starship vehicle on the orbital launch mount at its Starbase site in South Texas. This is a still from a video SpaceX posted to X on May 15, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
SpaceX continues gearing up for the fourth test flight of its Starship megarocket, which could be just around the corner.
Technicians recently stacked the Starship rocket that will conduct the flight, placing its "Ship" upper stage atop its "Super Heavy" first-stage booster on the orbital launch mount at SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas. The company posted a video and photos of this operation, which was performed using the "chopstick" arms of Starbase's giant launch tower, on X yesterday (May 15).
"Full stack of Flight 4 Starship," SpaceX wrote in the post.
Starship stacking is a dramatic and impressive sight. There's a striking juxtaposition of mechanical and natural beauty, for example, as a gleaming silver rocket rises amid shrub-studded seaside dunes. And that 400-foot-tall (122 meters) rocket is bigger and more powerful than any other launch vehicle humanity has ever built.
The stacking follows earlier testing performed separately with Flight 4's Super Heavy and Ship. SpaceX has already ignited the Raptor engines of both vehicles on the launch mount, in common and brief prelaunch trials known as static fires.
Another shot of the recent Starship stacking shared by SpaceX in a May 15 X post. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
Starship's three test flights occurred in April 2023, November 2023 and March 14 of this year.
The giant rocket's performance has improved on each successive liftoff. The debut, for instance, ended after just four minutes when Starship's two stages failed to separate. Starship doubled that flight time on the second launch and also achieved stage separation. Flight number three lasted nearly 50 minutes, ending when Ship broke apart upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere.
The fourth test flight of SpaceX's Starship could launch as soon as next month, according to Elon Musk. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)
Flight number four could lift off in just three to five weeks, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said recently.
There are still some logistical hurdles to clear, however: SpaceX applied for a Starship launch license modification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing an investigation into what happened on the March 14 mission. That modification has apparently not been approved yet.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 22.05.2024
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SpaceX fuels up Starship megarocket ahead of 4th test flight
The "wet dress rehearsal" apparently went well.
SpaceX just fueled up its giant Starship rocket, checking another box ahead of the vehicle's fourth test flight.
The company performed a "wet dress rehearsal" with Starship at its Starbase site in South Texas today (May 20), filling both of the vehicle's stages with supercold liquid oxygen and liquid methane in a key prelaunch test.
"Launch rehearsal for Flight 4 complete," SpaceX said in a post on X today, which also shared four photos of the procedure.
SpaceX is developing Starship to help humanity settle the moon and Mars, among other ambitious tasks. And the company already has customers lined up. A few years ago, for instance, NASA selected Starship as the first crewed lander for its Artemis program of lunar exploration.
The vehicle consists of two stainless-steel stages, both of which are designed to be fully reusable: a huge booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft known as Starship, or simply "Ship."
When these two stages are stacked, Starship stands about 400 feet (122 meters) tall — higher than any rocket ever built. It's also the most powerful launcher in history, boasting about 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. That's nearly twice as much thrust as NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket.
That thrust comes courtesy of Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines. Ship, for its part, is powered by six Raptors. The engines burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane, propellants that can be sourced on Mars, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has stressed.
Starship has flown three times to date, in April 2023, November 2023 and March 14 of this year.
The debut flight didn't last long; Starship's two stages failed to separate, and SpaceX detonated the vehicle intentionally four minutes after launch. Starship achieved stage separation on flight two, which lasted twice as long. Flight three was even better, coming to an end about 50 minutes after liftoff when Ship broke apart upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere.
The main goal of the upcoming flight four "is getting through max reentry heating," Musk said via X today.
SpaceX aims to launch flight four in about two weeks, he added in the X post. However, the timing may not be entirely up to the company.
SpaceX has applied for a Starship launch license modification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), for example, a request that is apparently still pending. The FAA is also overseeing an investigation into what happened on Starship's third flight.
Quelle: SC
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