SpaceX launched its newest Starship prototype for the first time.
The SN9 vehicle’s three engines ignited for about a second today (January 6) at 17:07 EST (2200 GMT) during a static fire test at SpaceX’s facility in southern Texas, near the Boca Chica village on the Gulf Coast .
Static fires, in which rocket engines ignite while a vehicle remains anchored to the ground, are a routine pre-flight check. And SN9 (“Serial No. 9”) will really take off soon, if everything goes according to plan: SpaceX is preparing the vehicle for a test flight that must be similar to the epic made last month by its predecessor.
Video: Watch SpaceX test its Starship SN9 engines
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On December 9, SN8 – which was powered by three of SpaceX’s next generation Raptor engines, such as the SN9 – was executed the first high altitude jump of the Starship program, rising about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) in the skies of southern Texas. (Three previous single-engine prototypes also flew, but they all reached a maximum altitude of around 500 feet, or 150 meters.)
SN8 did not maintain its landing and exploded in a dramatic fireball. But the vehicle reached virtually every other milestone that SpaceX had set, founder and CEO of the leading company Elon Musk declare the flight a great success.
SpaceX is developing the Starship to take people and payloads to the Moon, Mars and other distant destinations – and eventually to take over all of the company’s space flight needs. The system consists of two elements: a 165-foot (50 m) spacecraft called Starship and a giant first-stage booster known as the Super Heavy.
Both the Starship and the Super Heavy will be fully and quickly reusable, said Musk. The Super Heavy will return to Earth for vertical landings after placing the Starship at the top, as the first stages of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets already do. But the spacecraft’s touchdowns will be even more accurate than those of the Falcons, ideally occurring directly at the launch stand to improve turnaround times, Musk recently announced.
The spacecraft, meanwhile, will make many round trips between Earth and Mars, or any other destination that has been targeted. The vehicle only needs the Super Heavy of about 30 engines to leave our planet relatively bulky; the last six-engine starship will be powerful enough to launch itself from the surfaces of the moon and Mars, said Musk.
Today’s static fire was captured on video by dedicated spacecraft observers, such as the tourism website Spadre.com, which broadcasts live views of Starship on YouTube It may not be the only test performed by SN9 before taking off. For example, SN8 led four static fires over more than a month before its high altitude jump.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.