SpaceX test-fired the higher stage of its seventh Starship megarocket once more lately, this time practising for an in-space engine burn.
The corporate ignited all six of the Flight 7 Starship spacecraft’s Raptor engines for about 10 seconds on a check stand at its Starbase facility in South Texas on Sunday (Dec. 15).
SpaceX introduced that essential prelaunch check through X that very same day. And right this moment (Dec. 17), in one other X publish, the corporate revealed that it has performed one other static fireplace with that very same car — a trial of a fairly totally different type.
“Single-engine static fireplace demonstrating a flight-like startup for an in-space burn,” SpaceX wrote in the publish, which featured two movies of the practically two-minute-long burn.
The corporate has additionally static-fired Flight 7’s Tremendous Heavy first-stage booster, conducting that 33-engine check at Starbase final week.
Associated: What’s subsequent for SpaceX’s Starship after its profitable sixth check flight?
SpaceX is creating Starship to assist humanity colonize the moon and Mars, and carry out quite a lot of different spaceflight duties (equivalent to finishing the meeting of its Starlink broadband megaconstellation).
The absolutely reusable, stainless-steel car is the most important and strongest rocket ever constructed; Starship stands about 400 ft (122 meters) tall when stacked.
Starship has launched on six check flights so far, in April and November of 2023 and March, June, October and November of this 12 months. The car has carried out very effectively; on the latest three flights, for instance, each phases made it to area and survived the journey again down via Earth’s ambiance in a single piece.
SpaceX has not but introduced a goal launch date for Flight 7, however an e-mail despatched by NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration means that the corporate is eyeing Jan. 11. (NASA intends to look at the upcoming flight utilizing a Gulfstream V jet, in response to that e-mail.)
