SpaceX continues to prepare for the first orbital test flight of its Starship Mars rocket.
SpaceX today (Dec. 15) conducted another “static fire” test at its South Texas facility, lighting up Vessel 24, the prototype Starship’s 165-foot-tall (50-meter) upper stage spacecraft.
One of Ship 24’s Raptor’s six engines ignited at 2:01 p.m. EST (1901 GMT; 1:01 p.m. local Texas time), firing for about seven seconds while the vehicle remained anchored to the ground. The brief test was captured on video by NASASpaceFlight (opens in new tab) and Rocket Ranch Boca Chica (opens in new tab).
Related to: SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy booster tested 14 engines (video)
Ship 24 completes single engine static fire test at Starbase Texas pic.twitter.com/gF9beLcarXDecember 15, 2022
The spacecraft will fly on the 24th in the first orbital test flight of the Starship program, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said could take off within the next few months. The prototype has already passed through the static-fire range. it flashed all six of its Raptors in September, for example.
Ship 24 will rise atop Booster 7, the Starship’s massive Super Heavy first stage prototype. SpaceX is also putting Booster 7 through its paces. On November 29, for example, the giant rocket lit up 11 of its 33 Raptors. 15 days before that, the booster did a static fire with 14 engines.
SpaceX is developing the fully reusable Starship to carry people and cargo to the Moon and Mars, as well as a number of other missions closer. For example, SpaceX plans to launch most of its next-generation Starlink internet satellites using Starship, Musk said.
SpaceX has already lined up some customers for Starship lunar flights. NASA selected the vehicle as the first crewed lander for its Artemis lunar program, and Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa ordered a spaceship mission around the moon that would carry several artists and influencers, including “Everyday Astronaut” Tim Dodd.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens in new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall: (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
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