The Super Heavy booster for the 4th test flight of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket rolls towards the launch pad in this picture, which SpaceX shared by means of X on May 11, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX through X)
We’re most likely still a month approximately far from the next launch of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket.
That was the timeline Elon Musk provided in a post on X over the weekend, stating Starship’s next test flight is “most likely 3 to 5 weeks” away. “Objective is for the ship to surpass max heating, or a minimum of even more than last time,” the billionaire business owner included.
The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is the most significant and most effective rocket ever developed. It includes 2 components, both of which are created to be totally and quickly recyclable: a big first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 m) upper phase referred to as Starship, or just “Ship.”
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Numerous Starship automobiles are seen at SpaceX’s Starbase center in South Texas in this picture, which Elon Musk shared by means of X on May 11, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX by means of X)
A completely stacked Starship has actually flown 3 times to date, on each celebration from SpaceX’s Starbase website in South Texas– in April 2023, November 2023 and March 14 of this year. The huge car has actually carried out much better with each succeeding flight.
Throughout the launching liftoff, for instance, Starship’s 2 phases stopped working to separate as prepared, and SpaceX detonated the toppling lorry simply 4 minutes after liftoff. Flight 2 attained phase separation, however both Super Heavy and Ship disintegrated early, ending the objective after 8 minutes.
On Flight 3, Super Heavy effectively guided its method into position for a prepared Gulf of Mexico splashdown however disintegrated about 1,650 feet (500 m) above the waves. Ship reached orbital speed and flew for almost 50 minutes, though it eventually caught the violent forces of frictional heating when reentering Earth’s environment.
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As he kept in mind in his X post, Musk desires Ship to do even much better on the upcoming Flight 4.
SpaceX has actually been preparing for Flight 4 for a while now. The business has actually currently carried out fixed fire tests for both the Super Heavy and the Ship appointed to the objective, briefly sparking their Raptor engines while the lorries stayed anchored to the pad at Starbase. SpaceX likewise just recently rolled Flight 4’s Super Heavy back to the pad, most likely for more screening, a relocation the business narrated in a post on X on Saturday (May 11).
There might still be logistical obstacles to clear; SpaceX is looking for a license adjustment for its next launch from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is supervising an examination into what took place on the March 14 flight.
Editor’s note: The initial variation of this story improperly mentioned that SpaceX is looking for a launch license from the FAA for the next Starship liftoff.
