SpaceX pressing ahead with ambitious Super Heavy-Starship test flight

Moving forward with an ambitious testing schedule, SpaceX readied the world’s most powerful rocket for its fourth flight on Thursday, an attempt to put the company’s Starship upper stage into space and then bring it back. back during the heat of re-entry for a controlled drop into the Indian Ocean.

The flight plan also called for the gigantic Super Heavy first stage booster to make a controlled descent for a “soft” landing in the Gulf of Mexico, after propelling the Starship out of the lower atmosphere.

The two-hour launch window at SpaceX’s “Starbase” facility in Boca Chica, Texas, was supposed to open at 8 a.m. EDT. Mission duration, from start to finish: one hour and five minutes.

The 39-story-tall Super Heavy-Starship rocket is by far the most powerful launcher in the world, with more than twice the liftoff thrust of the Space Shuttle, NASA’s legendary Apollo Saturn 5 program, and the Space Shuttle System rocket. Space Launch designed for the agency’s Artemis. moon rocket.

Powered by 33 methane-burning Raptor engines, the 230-foot-tall Super Heavy booster generates an impressive 16 million pounds of thrust. It is designed to propel the Starship’s upper stage out of the lower atmosphere before falling for a rocket-powered descent for landing, refurbishment and reuse.

The 160-foot-tall Starship, powered by six Raptors, is also designed to be fully reusable, capable of tail-landing on Earth, the Moon or even Mars.

For the Super Heavy-Starship’s initial test flights, however, recovery was not an option. The objective was to “simply” return both stages to the lower atmosphere intact and under control. For Thursday’s flight, both stages were programmed to attempt rocket descents, mimicking real landing procedures. But both were expected to sink on impact.

“The fourth flight test shifts our focus from reaching orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX said on its website. “The main objectives will be to perform a landing and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieve a controlled entry of the Starship.”

During the previous three flights, two in 2023 and the most recent in March, the Super Heavy and Starship stages suffered catastrophic failures before all test objectives could be achieved. But with each flight, SpaceX implemented hardware and software upgrades that resulted in dramatically improved performance.

On the third test flight, Starship’s upper stage reached space, circled the planet and began a planned descent over the Indian Ocean before breaking up in the upper atmosphere. The Super Heavy booster managed to return to the lower atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico before control was lost.

But SpaceX hailed the flight as an overall success and made more changes to improve performance during Thursday’s test.

Getting the Super Heavy-Starship to fly regularly is critical to NASA’s Artemis lunar program. NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract in 2021 to develop a variant of the Starship upper stage to transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back. Artemis crews will travel to and from the Moon using Orion capsules built by Lockheed Martin.

To reach the Moon, several flights of Super Heavy Refuelers will have to be launched to robotically refuel the upper stage of a starship already in low Earth orbit. The Starship lander will then fly to lunar orbit to await the Artemis moonwalkers.

The NASA contract requires an unpiloted lunar landing test flight before astronauts make an actual landing attempt. Artemis managers are targeting late 2026 for the first lunar landing with astronauts on board.

But this will depend on SpaceX launching enough Super Heavy-Starship flights to demonstrate reliability. While SpaceX’s philosophy is to fly often, learn from mistakes and fly again, NASA will require a long series of successful flights before the agency deems it safe to put astronauts on board.