Mirroring comments made a few weeks ago, CEO Elon Musk said that SpaceX could be ready to test two ships simultaneously in the next “weeks”.
On November 30, in response to an unofficial aerial photo edited to show two starships on SpaceX’s launch pad in southern Texas, Musk noted that the performance “will be real soon”. In the past four months of 2019, a SpaceX team quickly built an identical ‘launch assembly’ – the structure that maintains, powers and releases the starship – to augment existing facilities. That work started just days before the consecutive launch of Starship SN5 and SN6 and a few months after Starship SN4 exploded and damaged the lone launch assembly.
Considered “Suborbital Pad B”, the new launch assembly and all associated cryogenic pipelines debuted with the Starship SN9 cryogenic test campaign in late December and is scheduled to support its first static shooting of Starship as early as January 4th. Meanwhile, Starship SN10 – with SN11 not far behind – was stacked at its peak on January 2.
In other words, Musk’s claim that test operations with several starships are only a few weeks away is easily credible. Based on the ill-fated crash of the starship SN9 before heading to the launch pad, the SN10 could easily be ready for transport to “Suborbital Pad A” in mid-January. If SpaceX does what SpaceX normally does, the improved efficiency can take the SN10 to the launch pad to begin pre-flight tests in a week or two.
Of course, Starship SN9 is a day or two away from its first Raptor static fire – a triple engine test – and could be reverted to a 12.5 km (~ 7.8 mi) launch attempt a few days after that, if the test finds no problems. Given the explosive but successful high-altitude debut of the Starship SN8, it is far from a guarantee that the SN9 will be whole to welcome the Starship SN10.
If the SN9 launch debut is delayed for a few weeks, chances are much better that the SN10 will be able to join its stellar senior sister on a show first. It is also possible that Starship SN9 will be launched, landed and hailed by SN10 a few days later.
Most likely, the Starship SN11 – the tank section recently stacked to its full height – could be completed quickly, joining the Starship SN10 on the launch pad in late January or February. Ultimately, even if SpaceX defies its own standards and is unable to build or test future ships more efficiently, the company will have no shortage of prototypes to test and launch throughout 2021. Stay tuned!