With its Starship Mars rocket, SpaceX just completed its most ambitious yet powerful test to date. Booster 7 commenced its static fire test operation on Monday with a full-duration ignition of 14 Raptor engines, a critical event well before the long-awaited 33-engine dynamic fire test. This achievement brings the Super Heavy booster another step closer to becoming ready for Starship's first orbital mission, as mentioned by NASA Space Flight in a report.
While this flight is officially scheduled to take place no sooner than December 2022, the preparatory amount on both the launcher and the ship, as well as the grounding infrastructure and systems at the launch site, will most certainly postpone the debut of Starship into the next year. However, manufacturing is accelerating, enabling the company to maintain a rapid cadence of flights after the maiden flight is done.
During a "static fire" test at Starbase, the company's South Texas facility, SpaceX ignited 14 Raptor engines on Booster 7, a version of Starship's first-stage Super Heavy rocket.
Super Heavy Rocket: Historic Flight in the Making
Static fires are regular preflight testing in which the engines of a rocket are momentarily fired while the vehicle remains grounded. And SpaceX is preparing to launch Starship, the agency's first orbital test flight, which will reportedly comprise Booster 7 as well as an upper-stage prototype designated as Ship 24. Musk has suggested that the historic flight might take place before the final moment of the year.
The static fire might be a significant step toward orbital liftoff since it more than quadrupled the number of Raptor engines fired throughout a Starship test launch. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to prove Booster 7's flight worthiness; the vehicle has a staggering 33 Raptors, following the report from space.com.
Ship 24 has six Raptor engines. During a static fire on September 8, SpaceX fired all of them at once. SpaceX is building the Starship to transport passengers and goods to Mars and the moon in addition to conducting many other spaceflight jobs.
Starship prototypes have conducted a few test flights, but none have reached higher than around 6 miles (10 km) in the skies. And neither of them featured a Super Heavy truck. SpaceX has already secured some clients for Starship, particularly NASA, which chose the spacecraft as the initial crewed rover for its Artemis moon exploration program.
Booster 7, a prototype of SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy first stage, ignites 14 of its Raptor engines during a static fire test on Nov. 14, 2022. SpaceX’s super heavy rocket makes its initial blastoff tests with a full test duration of 14 engines.
ALSO READ: Space Force X-37B Craft Landed Back to Earth After Two-Years in the Space
Earlier Tests and Fails
SpaceX workers have been adding insulation mostly on orbital launch mount (OLM) legs as testing the fire suppression system in readiness for the commencement of the whole static fire test campaign. Though such shielding also isn't expected to be necessary for the 14-engine static fire test, it will protect the pipes and cables leading up into the launching mount for such a full 33-engine static fire test and, finally, for launch.
However, as per Teslarati's report, during the spin prime test on November 10, the fire suppression system has been tested twice. The first test occurred during the spin prime test when methane gas was displaced from the air using only the nitrogen pressure system, and the second occurred later in the test window.
Throughout the 14-engine static fire test, SpaceX was scheduled to employ the whole nitrogen as well as water suppression system upon that pad, giving critical data on the quality of this critical safety system at the pad. Shielding and protective panels are also now being developed for placement on the Starship Launch Tower. Cladding panels were also found nearby, indicating that they will be placed shortly and will most likely be required to protect the tower for the deployment of the most powerful rocket yet built.
RELATED ARTICLE: Elon Musk Says SpaceX Starship Presentation with Super Heavy Will Broadcast Live Thursday
Check out more news and information on Space on Science Times.
