Nicholas D’Alessandro
March 17, 2021
The sun rises behind the SN10 spacecraft before its test flight in early March. The SN11 spacecraft could fly as early as Friday, March 19, pending a successful static fire test. Credit: Nicholas D’Alessandro / Spaceflight Insider
SpaceX Starship production continues along with the SN11 now going through the static test phase of the Raptor engine.
The company continues its rapid production cadence and test flow while Starship SN11 was launched for the launch pad on March 7, 2021, at SpaceX’s facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. This happened a few days after the SN10’s difficult but successful landing (and the subsequent explosion about 10 minutes later).
The remains of the aftermath of that flight were still in the landing area when the SN11 arrived at platform B and completed the environmental tests and cryogenic testing in the following days.
After taking the usual weekend, a first attempt at static fire was made on Monday, March 15, but there appeared to be an abortion after the ignition with a long howl from the engines and a quick pressure indicating an unusual test .
Another attempt is possible in the coming days, pending the closure of an associated route. The results of the static fire can pave the way for a flight as early as Friday or Saturday, as indicated by the temporary flight restrictions currently in effect for those days at the time of this writing. These dates are highly subject to change, however, as is usual with the incipient starship program.
Federal Aviation Administration approval was also granted for the flight now and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself recently posted on Twitter that Starship SN11 will be ready to fly soon. All eyes are now on the next static fire.
A recap of the flight of the SN10 spacecraft. Video courtesy of SpaceX
Tagged: Main stories SpaceX Starship Starship SN10 Starship SN11
Nicholas D’Alessandro
Nicholas D’Alessandro was born and raised in southwest Florida. The seeds of his interest in Space Exploration were planted when the sonic boom of the space shuttle on re-entry reverberated in his childhood home, even across the state; the knowledge that a real-life spaceship was passing over and could have that effect was fascinating to him. A high school field trip to the Kennedy Space Center cemented that fascination, and with an additional interest in the forefront of automotive technology and Teslas, it was the story of Elon Musk’s journey to Cape Canaveral with SpaceX that finally led Nicholas to move to A Space Coast and, after joining the Spaceflight Insider in 2020, they begin to document the beginning of the era of commercial space flights.