Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is closing in on its second major test for the Starship rocket. Starship is SpaceX’s largest rocket to date, and also the largest in the world. The company is developing the vehicle in Boca Chica, Texas, and after it completed a wet dress rehearsal earlier this month, a static fire could happen as soon as this week if SpaceX has checked all of its boxes. Comments made by the firm’s management and a visit by its chief Elon Musk to the base in Texas indicate that things are speeding up for the rocket that saw little excitement last year despite widespread speculation about a highly anticipated orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX Prepares For Next Set Of Road Closures In Boca Chica
The earliest hint of a possible static fire later this week came when SpaceX’s vice president of build and reliability, Mr. Bill Gerstenmaier, shared at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) that his firm is making progress on Starship development. As reported by SpaceNews, the executive shared the tradeoff between the risks and the benefits of a test flight, and went on to state that if “things went well,” then the test could take place this week, but that there was still a lot of work left to be completed.
The amount of work SpaceX seems to have to complete is clear when we look at the road closures scheduled for this week and the last. SpaceX was allowed by officials to close the highway and the beach for yesterday, today, and tomorrow – with the last two being backup dates for the first. Both have been canceled, and the next scheduled closures are for the coming weekend. Activity has also increased at SpaceX’s Texas Starbase, particularly after the firm confirmed that it would conduct a hot fire test soon after de-stacking the first and second Starship stages.
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The test will be the first time that the 33 Raptor 2 engines responsible for powering the rocket will be fired up. As a whole, the Starship system stands at a staggering 394 feet, with the first stage Super Heavy booster itself standing in at 230 feet.
To make things even more interesting, SpaceX chief Elon Musk also traveled to Boca Chica recently, in another sign that things appear to be moving fast. Musk himself confirmed that he had inspected the 33-engine first stage, and shared a picture of the rocket from its base.
A 33 engine static fire will be the largest of its kind that the world has ever seen. The only other rocket in history that has used a comparable number of engines is the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket. However, the N1 did not rely on static fires prior to its launch attempts – a decision that proved fatal for the vehicle. The USSR made four launch attempts of the rocket designed to generate 10 million pounds of thrust, and all of these failed due to problems with the engine control system, the propellant lines, and other components.
Starship is designed to generate more thrust than the N1, with a planned total of 17 million pounds. This will make it the largest rocket in the world if all tests are successful, with the title currently belonging to NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).
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