The next SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy rocket will launch from Texas this morning on an orbital flight aimed at gaining more control over landing operations.
The rocket became the most powerful rocket ever to reach orbit in February, generating more than 16 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, but the Super Heavy booster crashed into the Gulf of Mexico as the spacecraft’s upper stage burned up during his return over the Indian Ocean.
In what will be its fourth orbital launch attempt, SpaceX wants both parts to make more controlled descents that mimic landings as if they were landing on drone ships at sea, but still just land in the water, again in the Gulf of Mexico and India. Ocean.
The launch window opens as early as 8 a.m. EDT, with the 350-foot-tall stacked rocket aiming to lift off again from SpaceX’s Starbase test launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The first two attempts in 2023 both ended explosively before partial success in February.
The third launch of SpaceX’s starship reaches space without exploding, but disintegrates upon re-entry
“Starship’s third test flight has made tremendous progress toward a future of rapidly reliable reusable rockets,” the company wrote on its website. “The test included a number of exciting firsts, including the first return of a Starship from space, the first-ever opening and closing of Starship’s cargo door in space, and a successful demonstration of propellant transfer.”
The propellant transfer is necessary for SpaceX’s planned use in NASA’s Artemis program, so that a version of Starship could serve as a human landing system for the Artemis III mission as early as 2026. After launch from Earth, the spacecraft will need to refuel in space to get to the moon. The same technology would also enable deeper space travel, including SpaceX’s ultimate goal of getting Starship to Mars.
“The fourth flight test shifts our focus from reaching orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,” the company said. “The primary objectives are to conduct a landing and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieve controlled entry of the Starship.”
Building on the shortcomings of the third flight, the company has made upgrades to both the software and hardware, as well as changes to launch operations to increase the ship’s reliability, the company said.
The flight path will be similar to that of launch No. 3, with the aim of crashing the upper stage into the Indian Ocean, without the need for a deorbit burn, “maximizing public safety while providing the opportunity to to meet our main goal of a controlled spaceship. return.”
“Starship’s fourth flight will bring us closer to the rapidly reusable future on the horizon,” the company said. “We continue to rapidly develop Starship, placing flight hardware in a flying environment to learn as quickly as possible, while building a fully reusable transportation system designed to transport crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond .”
As test flights continue in Texas, SpaceX plans to potentially build out Starship launch sites at both the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of the Air Force are both leading environmental impact studies to measure the effect of launching the most powerful rocket ever to orbit Earth.
The powerful rocket nearly doubles the power of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for its Artemis program.
