The newest from SpaceX Starship The prototype came to life three times today (January 13), apparently keeping the vehicle on the runway for a high-altitude test flight in the near future.
The three-engine SN9 vehicle carried out its second, third and fourth “static fire” tests in rapid succession today (January 13) at SpaceX’s facility in southern Texas, near the Boca Chica village on the Gulf Coast. The engines came on briefly at 13h28 EST (1828 GMT), again at 15h22 EST (2022 GMT) and again at 16h36 EST (2136 GMT).
During static fires, the engines light up briefly while the vehicle remains attached to the ground. SN9 already had one of these tests on his resume, having completed a short static fire on January 6.
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“All three static fires completed and no RUDs!” Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX said via Twitter this afternoon. (RUD is short for “unscheduled rapid dismount”, Musk’s favorite euphemism for “explosion”.)
“Detank and inspections now. Good progress towards our ‘Hop in & go to Mars!’ objective “, he added in another tweet.
Detank and inspections now. Good progress on our “Hop in & go to Mars!” goal.January 13, 2021
These tests are part of the preparations for launching the SN9, which will take to the skies in the coming days or weeks if everything goes according to plan. The SN9 flight is expected to be similar to that carried out last month by its predecessor, the SN8, which climbed about 12.5 kilometers in the skies of southern Texas.
SN8 is no more; it went down really fast and exploded in its designated landing zone. But the vehicle checked virtually every other box, which led SpaceX’s founder and CEO Elon Musk to declare the December 9 test mission – the first high-altitude flight for a starship vehicle – a great success.
SpaceX is developing the starship to take people and payloads to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. The transport system consists of two reusable elements: a 50-meter-high spaceship called Starship and a giant rocket known as the Super Heavy.
Both Starship and Super Heavy will be powered by SpaceX’s next generation Raptor engine. The last starship will have six Raptors, Musk said, and Super Heavy will have about 30 of the engines.
The spacecraft will be powerful enough to launch itself from the moon and Mars, but it will need the help of the Super Heavy to leave our planet much more massive. (After placing the ship in Earth orbit, the Super Heavy will return to Earth for a vertical landing, preferably directly at the launch stand.)
Musk has set an ambitious timeline for the starship, saying the system should start launching people to Mars in 2026 and could even do that in 2024 “if we’re lucky.” Therefore, expect testing in South Texas to increase considerably in the coming months and years.
We could see another or two static fires before the SN9 went up. After all, the SN8 carried out four static shots over about a month before taking off. These tests are closely monitored by starship observers, such as the tourism website Spadre.com.
Editor’s note: this story was updated at 17:20 EST on January 13 to include news of the third static fire of the day.
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.