SpaceX’s third high-altitude spacecraft prototype appears to have successfully ignited its trio of Raptor engines, increasing the chances of another launch and landing attempt later this week.
After an earlier aborted attempt before the propellant’s loading started on February 22, SpaceX was able to revert the spacecraft’s serial number 10 (SN10) and its launch facilities to a second attempt ~ 24 hours later. Unlike the SN9 starship, which underwent four tortuous weeks of trying to test clean, aborted and out of nominal static fire before finally being released for flight; The SN10 spacecraft apparently avoided a similar fate and started its Raptor engines without obvious problems after just two days of real attempts.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the test was really successful. Long-distance observations, looking from the outside in, leave little or no room for different interpretations, and the difference between a good and a bad test may be too subtle to be detected with the naked eye.
Yesterday’s aborted attempt never went beyond activating the tank park, but it may have been caused by ground support equipment (GSE), the starship itself, or something else entirely. Regardless, almost exactly 24 hours later, Starship SN10 started all three Raptor engines after a smooth, bug-free test flow. This single static fire served simultaneously as the first wet general test (WDR) of the solid steel rocket with live (and flammable) liquid methane and oxygen propellant, making a flow so clean that it was much more impressive and encouraging.
However, one of the last remaining residents of the village of Boca Chica reported that they received a standard security ‘alert’ distributed by SpaceX about 40 minutes after the SN10’s static fire. These alerts serve as reminders for residents to stay away from the windows of their homes during the starship’s static fire test to mitigate the risk of injury in the event that a particular test goes wrong and a vehicle explodes.
What it could means that SpaceX quickly determined that Tuesday’s static shot was unsatisfactory, although it could easily be SpaceX protecting its bets in case it needs to redo the SN10’s static shot on Wednesday, February 24th. If Tuesday’s test went well, SpaceX could turn the SN10 into a launch attempt as early as Thursday, switching to Friday if a hypothetical Wednesday static fire redux did well. Stay tuned for updates (and hopefully confirmation from CEO Elon Musk).
