SpaceX’s Starship rocket may conduct its second test flight as early as next week.
The third flight test of SpaceX’s Starship spaceship is scheduled for March 14, per a message the business secretly posted on X (formerly Twitter) advertising a webcast of the launch. The rather confusingly named “Starship” is made up of two parts: the Super Heavy first-stage booster and the reusable upper stage made of stainless steel. The two combined are taller than four hundred feet (122 metres).
In March, the business conducted a crucial fuelling test at its Starbase facility close to Boca Chica, Texas. More than ten million pounds of liquid oxygen and methane were fed into the rocket during the test. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, posted images of the fueling test along with the caption, “Starship Flight 3 preparing for launch,” on X. When the time comes, SpaceX will let you to witness the test at Space.com.
Super Heavy and Starship are intended to be completely reusable. When combined, they make up the most potent rocket in the world, able to send up to 165 tonnes (or 150 metric tonnes) into orbit.
NASA chose Starship to carry out the moon landing for its next Artemis 3 mission, which isn’t expected to happen until at least 2026. However, Starship has a few obstacles to overcome before that may occur. It must first enter orbit, to start with. Starship was unable to accomplish this on the rocket’s first two test flights, which took place in November 2023 and April 2023.
Starship started to tumble on the first test flight when it was unable to detach from its first-stage rocket. Shortly after takeoff, the rocket was exploded by SpaceX.
About two minutes and forty seconds into its second test flight, Starship successfully broke away from Super Heavy, but not long after, Super Heavy exploded in a huge aerial explosion.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States determined that SpaceX needed to conduct 17 corrective actions before to the next flight, 10 for Starship and seven for the Super Heavy rocket, after that second test flight.
In a statement released on February 26, SpaceX said that it has “implemented hardware changes on upcoming Starship vehicles to improve leak reduction, fire protection, and refined operations associated with the propellant vent to increase reliability.” According to the statement, SpaceX has finished those.
