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SpaceX closes 2023 with a double test of a megarocket booster and a Starship spacecraft on Friday 29 September 2023. Photo/SpaceX/Space
TEXAS – SpaceX closed 2023 with a double test of the megarocket booster and the Starship spacecraft on Friday 29 September 2023. The double test of the Starship and Super Heavy giant rocket engines was carried out at SpaceX’s Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas.
The test, which lasted about 10 seconds, succeeded in firing 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster. This engine serves as the first stage of the Starship rocket, the world’s largest and most powerful booster.
“Just finished static firing on Flight 3 Super Heavy Booster,” wrote SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on X (Twitter) quoted by SINDOnews from the Space page, Monday (1/1/2024). This third Starship trial was carried out in preparation for launch in early 2024.
SpaceX’s official X account confirmed the successful test of Super Heavy Booster 10 and separate testing of one Raptor engine on Starship Ship 28 that will be aboard Super Heavy Booster 10 during an upcoming test flight. The Starship test aims to demonstrate the Raptor’s engine restart capability in space.
“Ignition of a single Raptor engine on Starship Flight 3 indicates a flight-like start to combustion in space,” SpaceX wrote in an X post.
SpaceX launched two Starship test flights in 2023, first in April and then in November, although neither test flight successfully completed its goals. Starship returned to Earth right in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, while Super Heavy’s first stage crashed in the Gulf of Mexico.
During an April test launch, Starship and its Super Heavy booster failed to separate as planned, leading SpaceX to intentionally detonate the rocket four minutes after liftoff. The test also destroyed a large part of SpaceX’s Starship launch pad, requiring extensive repairs.
The second test flight, called Flight 2, demonstrated several major successes, including successful stage separation and normal first stage engine combustion. However, Starship’s upper stage exploded about eight minutes after liftoff after experiencing an event that triggered its automatic flight termination system.
The first stage also exploded shortly after the stage separation. SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy megarockets are designed to be fully reusable and will one day fly astronauts to the moon and back.
NASA has used Starship to land Artemis 3 astronauts on the moon and SpaceX has booked private flights around the moon with several customers. When stacked stacked, Starship and its Super Heavy booster are almost 122 meters high and are the largest rockets ever built.
The aircraft is also designed to be the most powerful, capable of transporting up to 165 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit. SpaceX hopes to launch a Flight 3 test of its Starship system soon, but timing details are still unclear.
(wib)