In an attempt to undo a string of unfortunate events that have occurred both on the ground and in the air, SpaceX is preparing to launch its enormous Starship rocket from South Texas.
The last Starship test flight was nearly three months ago, and it notched a milestone: the first reuse of a Super Heavy booster. But that mission ended with the upper stage, also called Starship, or Ship, breaking apart on reentry and the booster exploding over the Gulf during the landing burn phase of flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration has since closed its accident investigations into Flight 9, paving the way for this next attempt, but a few weeks later, the Ship scheduld for Flight 10 blew up on the ground during a static-fire campaign, destroying a test stand and forcing SpaceX to swap in a new upper stage for this next mission.
These back-to-back losses have raised the stakes and turned this next flight into its own kind of test: Can SpaceX integrate lessons learned and notch some new wins?
The company’s methodology, which is well-known as “build-fly-fix-repeat,” produces a wealth of useful data with every test flight. However, the ongoing loss of “Ship” while in flight has prompted concerns about when the megarocket would be prepared to transport payloads for NASA and commercial clients.
SpaceX has made significant strides on the stainlesssteel Starship since the initial flight in April 2023, despite the setbacks. In May, the company made history by successfully reusing a booster for the first time, demonstrating that rapid reuse is feasible. However, it still appears that returning the upper stage, let alone landing it for reuse, which is the ultimate goal, is still a long way off.
The financial stakes are now more well known.SpaceX claimed to have already invested “more than $7.5 billion” in Starbase and the Starship program in a January filing with Texas regulators. SpaceX has informed the governor of Florida that it intends to invest a further $1.8 billion to establish Starship pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center.
Under the space agency’s Artemis program, SpaceX has two contracts totaling $4 billion to create a Human Landing System, a version of Starship, to send humans back to the moon. The current timeline for that mission, Artemis III, is set for mid-2027. SpaceX must accomplish a number of challenging milestones beyond basic launch and reentry in order to make that date and provide NASA with the assurance it needs that Starship is safe enough for humans. These include landing Starship on the moon, proving cryogenic propellant transfer in low Earth orbit, and refining Ship’s reusable heat shield. SpaceX needs to finish them all because any one of these would make history.
In the meantime, SpaceX transferred a large number of engineers from its Falcon 9 program to Starship in order to advance the resolution of the large rocket’s issues, according to a recent Bloomberg story.
It is impossible to overestimate the significance of Starship to the organization’s long-term goals. In addition to putting Starship online to launch larger, better-throughput versions of its Starlink internet satellites at a higher cadence, SpaceX is also aiming to fulfill Elon Musk’s longheld goal of eventually transporting people and goods to Mars. In order to support its multiplanetary aspirations, SpaceX wants to swiftly expand the constellation and increase income when that service surpasses 6 million users worldwide.
With 33 methanefueled Raptor engines on the booster and six on the ship, Starship is the biggest and most potent rocket ever constructed, rising close to 400 feet in the air. The complete Starship generates roughly 16.5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
SpaceX has scheduled a controlled splashdown for Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico and a splashdown for Ship in the Indian Ocean for this flight.
This year’s fourth test flight will be this one. August 24 is the planned liftoff date, with an hour-long launch window beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET. The launch will be streamed live on X by SpaceX.
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