It’s unclear yet how long SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket will remain grounded as engineers investigate a rare launch failure last week, but the next test flight of the company’s next-generation Starship vehicle appears to be on track for liftoff next month.
On Monday, SpaceX test-fired the 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 all systems functioned normally. At full power, the 33 engines generated nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, twice the power output of NASA’s iconic Saturn V Moon rocket.
SpaceX confirmed the static fire test reached its full duration, and teams drained methane and liquid oxygen from the rocket, 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 fourth flight of Starship on June 6, SpaceX successfully guided the Super Heavy booster back to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico east of Starbase. The ship continued into space and completed a half-lap around the planet before reentering the atmosphere for a guided propulsive splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
This was the first time SpaceX succeeded in getting the booster and ship close to their targeted splashdown locations. The Super Heavy booster’s on-target water landing gave SpaceX officials the confidence to attempt to recover the booster on the next flight at Starbase, where giant articulating arms—colloquially known as “chopsticks”—on the launch tower will try to catch the rocket as it slows to a hover right over the launch pad.
Kathy Lueders, SpaceX’s general manager at Starbase, told local residents last month that SpaceX was still considering whether to attempt a catch of the booster on the next flight. The catch concept is a bold one and is starkly different from the way SpaceX recovers Falcon 9 boosters, but SpaceX officials believe it is the best way to recover boosters for rapid reuse. Earlier this month, SpaceX released a teaser video for the next Starship flight suggesting that a booster catch was back on the table.
Full duration static fire of Flight 5 Super Heavy booster pic.twitter.com/8rF9KUdMUD
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 15, 2024
SpaceX will also use the fifth Starship test flight to test an upgraded heat shield on the ship, or upper stage, after reentry heating damaged the vehicle during descent on its previous flight last month. Working inside a hangar a short drive from the launch pad, technicians are replacing thousands of ceramic tiles on the outer skin of Ship 30.
Once that work is complete, SpaceX will stack the ship on top of the booster and may perform a full countdown rehearsal a few days before the first launch attempt, which could happen as early as August.
Meanwhile, construction of a second launch pad at Starbase is underway. Construction crews have stacked the first few segments of the latticework launch tower a short distance from the existing Starship launch pad. Within a couple of years, SpaceX aims to have two active launch pads in Texas and two Starship launch sites in Florida to support a growing Starship flight rate.
These Starship missions will launch Starlink internet satellites, conduct in-orbit refueling tests, and support NASA’s Artemis lunar program.
