In preparation for the seventh test flight of the Starship, SpaceX conducted ground tests of the first stage of Super Heavy yesterday, December 9 – all 33 Raptor engines were launched at the Starbase spaceport in South Texas.
Image source: x.com/SpaceX
The space contractor documented the momentous event on social media X, where he posted three photos and a short video from the test. The date for the seventh flight of Starship has not yet been announced, but the company is apparently counting on January 11: an email addressed to NASA and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) includes this date. NASA plans to deploy a Gulfstream V aircraft to monitor the flight.
The Starship rocket consists of two reusable stages. The top one is a 50-meter Starship or simply Ship. The bottom one is Super Heavy, and together their height is 122 m, and this is more than any other rocket in history. Starship develops almost twice the thrust of the Space Launch System rocket intended for flights to the Moon. To date, six Starship test flights have been carried out: in April and November 2023, and in March, June, October and November 2024.
In the last two missions, the rocket performed well: both Super Heavy and Ship went into space as planned and returned to Earth safe and sound. On the fifth flight, Super Heavy returned safely to the launch tower and was captured by “chopsticks” – the same way SpaceX captured the upper stage of Starship. The company attempted to repeat the booster capture on its sixth flight, but communications problems forced the Super Heavy to veer off course and land in the Gulf of Mexico.