February 10, 2023

SpaceX's giant Starship vehicle just took a huge step toward its first-ever orbital test flight, which could take place as soon as next month.

A Starship first-stage prototype known as Booster 7 ignited 31 of its 33 Raptor engines during a "static fire" test today (Feb. 9) at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas. 

The goal was to fire all 33 Raptors during the test, which occurred at 4:13 p.m. EST (2113 GMT; 3:13 p.m. local Texas time). But SpaceX will take it. 

"Team turned off 1 engine just before start & 1 stopped itself, so 31 engines fired overall. But still enough engines to reach orbit!" company founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter (opens in new tab) just after the test wrapped up.

The static fire lasted about seven seconds, the duration that SpaceX had mapped out beforehand, according to the company (opens in new tab). And Booster 7 emerged from the huge cloud of kicked-up dust in one piece, which is something to celebrate as well. 

SpaceX views Starship as a potentially revolutionary transportation system, one that could make Mars colonization and other ambitious off-Earth feats economically feasible. The stainless-steel vehicle consists of two elements: A giant booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship.

Both Starship and Super Heavy are designed to be fully reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's next-generation Raptor engine — 33 for the booster and six for the upper stage.

For months, SpaceX has been preparing Booster 7 and a Starship prototype called Ship 24 for an orbital flight test. Such work has included a fueling test with the duo, which the company achieved on Jan. 23, and a number of static fires — prelaunch trials in which engines are ignited briefly while a vehicle remains anchored to the ground.

Ship 24 fired up all six of its Raptors at Starbase last September, for example, and Booster 7 ignited 14 of its 33 engines two months later. That was the big first stage's static-fire high until today's test, which apparently checked a crucial box on the road to an orbital attempt.

That highly anticipated flight could occur as early as next month, provided today's test went as well as it appeared to (a verdict SpaceX won't render before analyzing all the data) and remaining checkouts go well, founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.

During that test mission, the Booster 7-Ship 24 duo will become the most powerful rocket ever to fly, taking the mantle from NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which debuted Nov. 16 on the agency's Artemis 1 moon mission.

SLS generated 8.8 million pounds of thrust on that liftoff. Super Heavy's 33 Raptors produce about 16.5 million pounds of thrust at full power, according to SpaceflightNow (opens in new tab).

Booster 7 will come back to Earth in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff, if all goes according to the test-flight plan. Ship 24 will circle our planet once and then splash down in the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian island of Kauai. 

January 25, 2023

SpaceX’s Starship—the vehicle by which Elon Musk, his legions of boffins, NASA, and the whole of mankind aims to return humans to the m

oon and eventually pack them off to Mars—is drawing ever nearer its inaugural launch. In point of fact, the mammoth spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster by which it is to be borne heavenward may well make their first orbital flight within weeks.

Reports from SpaceX’s Starbase rocket development facility in Boca Chica, Texas indicate Booster 7, an early prototype of the aforementioned Super Heavy booster, may be test-fired in short order and dramatic fashion.

On Monday, 23 January 2023, SpaceX engineers and technicians successfully conducted the mammoth vehicle’s first full wet dress rehearsal—an herculean undertaking in which more than ten-million-pounds of liquid oxygen and methane fuel were loaded into Starship and the Super Heavy booster, then pressurized to operational values. For purpose of perfecting complex pre-launch protocols, SpaceX personnel simulated countdown procedures up to the moment of liftoff.

Data gleaned during the wet dress rehearsal is currently being evaluated by SpaceX engineers. The absence of irregularity from subject test would bode well for a near-future Starship static-firing and subsequent test launch.

A static-firing would see the Super Heavy booster secured to a test stand and its Raptor engines—all 33 of them—briefly lit. To date, SpaceX has conducted 1, 3, 7, 11, and 14-engine static-firings of Booster 7. The anticipated 2023 static-firing will mark the first instance in which a fully-loaded Super Heavy booster stage is subjected to the cumulative thrust of its full complement of Raptor engines

Throughout 2020 and 2021, Starship upper-stage prototypes SN8 through SN15 alternately undertook test-flights and served as proof-of-concept demonstrators. On 05 May 2021, SN15 launched, ascended to an altitude of approximately ten-kilometers, then landed softly after a six-minute flight.

Starship’s first orbital flight is slated to be a straightforward affair. After propelling the Starship second-stage to a predetermined altitude, the Super Heavy booster first stage will separate and either splash-down in the Gulf of Mexico, land on a modified oceanic oil-rig, or return to its Boca Chica launch pad and land vertically thereupon. Starship, meanwhile, will continue to low Earth orbit, dally a bit in space, then return to Earth, splashing down off the coast of Hawaii.

SpaceX intends to conduct numerous Starship ground and flight tests throughout 2023. Once thoroughly vetted, the vehicle will be among the key assets of NASA’s Artemis program—eventually carrying cargo and astronauts to Earth’s moon later this decade.

United Launch Alliance (ULA)—the Boeing/Lockheed joint-venture that provides space launch services to the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and other major players in the space industry—expects the first flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket to take place by the end of 2022.

The Vulcan Centaur will replace ULA’s Atlas-5 launch vehicle—a twenty-year old Lockheed Martin design and the oldest active American rocket.

Each Atlas-5 comprises two main stages, the first of which is powered by a Russian RD-180 engine. The RD-180 is being phased out on account of the national security implications inherent its being reliant on foreign parts—which became a concern subsequent the U.S.’s and Russia’s disagreement over Ukrainian sovereignty. 

Provided preparations proceed apace, the partially reusable Vulcan Centaur’s inaugural mission will see it depart from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander—an autonomous, robotic vehicle capable of delivering payloads of up to 265-kilograms to the lunar surface with a target accuracy of one-hundred meters. 

The Vulcan Centaur was to have launched in 2020, but the program has been delayed by the rocky development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine (pictured)—which burns methane and is more powerful than the main engines that powered the space shuttle. ULA’s optimism notwithstanding, space industry insiders believe it’s unlikely that Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin will deliver the new engines before 2023.

Gary L. Wentz Jr., ULA’s vice president of government and commercial programs, asserts ULA has in its possession a number of the Russian-made RD-180 sufficient to complete the Atlas-5’s planned missions. Mister Wentz states Atlas 5 flights will wind-down as Vulcan Centaur launches spool-up. At present, Atlas-5 operations are slated to continue into 2024.

Space Force Col. Erin Gulden shares Mr. Wentz’s outlook, stating of the transition from the Atlas 5 to the Vulcan Centaur, “from the Space Force’s perspective, we don’t see any issues or concerns at this point with a gap in capability or ability to launch.”  

The Space Force’s first launch on a Vulcan Centaur is planned for late 2023.

This article is reprinted from "Propwash"

To learn more about United Launch Alliance go to:  https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/vulcan-centaur

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With hundreds of thousands logging in all over the globe to watch, the 'much upgraded' Starship SN15 aced a test flight that had destroyed four prototypes before it.

On Wednesday, May 5, Starship serial number 15 (SN15) successfully completed SpaceX’s fifth high-altitude flight test of a Starship prototype from Starbase in Texas.

Similar to previous high-altitude flight tests of Starship, SN15 was powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN15 performed a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.

The Starship prototype descended under active aerodynamic control, accomplished by independent movement of two forward and two aft flaps on the vehicle. All four flaps were actuated by an onboard flight computer to control Starship’s attitude during flight and enabled precise landing at the intended location. SN15’s Raptor engines reignited as the vehicle performed the landing flip maneuver immediately before touching down for a nominal landing on the pad.

While a small fire (probably methane-fed) was evident for several minutes after the landing, it was eventually extinguished without visible damage.

SpaceX notes that, "These test flights of Starship are all about improving our understanding and development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration interplanetary flights, and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond."