At its base in South Texas, SpaceX conducted a new static test with a prototype of the Starship system, which will play an important role in future missions to the Moon and Mars. The Raptor’s six engines now fired for a few seconds, enough to start a nearby forest fire.

The test took place at 0.30 am (Romanian time) and is another step towards a key moment that has been delayed several times: the first orbital flight of the Starship prototype spacecraft (named Ship 24) and the SuperHeavy 7 launch vehicle. It must happen. closer to the end of autumn, but it is impossible to say yet whether it will not be in 2023.

Musk wants to send people to Mars, and to do that, the company has been working on a huge space system called Starship for years, which includes a shuttle called Starship and a rocket called Space heavy. Both will be reusable.

Going into orbit with the Starship system is a technically more difficult step. To get to space, SpaceX must launch and test the Super Heavy stage, which will have more than 30 Raptor engines. There have been problems with the production of these engines, but Musk promised that they will be resolved, and also said that SpaceX will eventually produce a Raptor engine on a daily basis. In addition, the next-generation Raptor engines will be twice as powerful, and the unit cost will decrease.

What will the Starship system look like in the most powerful version

Musk wants to send people to Mars, and to do that, the company has been working on a huge space system called Starship for years, which includes a shuttle called Starship and a rocket called Space heavy. Both will be reusable, while the SLS rocket that NASA is trying to launch this time will no longer have reusable engines.

Musk announced the name Starship in September 2018, talking about the structure of the system, with the help of which in the distant future people will be able to create colonies on Mars. Until then, the rocket was known as the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR).

“Technically speaking, there are two parts: the Starship is the spacecraft/booster unit, and the Super Heavy is the booster (rocket engine) needed to escape Earth’s gravity,” Musk said.

1. The Starship will be 50 meters tall and 9 meters in diameter, have a large cargo bay and six Raptor engines.

2. About “Superheavy” Elon Musk said that it will be “the largest flying object ever created.” it will have more than 30 Raptor engines and will be a super-powerful missile. The Super Heavy stage will have a height of 69 meters and a tank capacity of 3,400 tons of fuel, almost three times that of the Starship stage. The next generations will have a capacity of 3,800 tons.

Last year, SpaceX successfully tested key components of the Starship space system, which is supposed to take humans to the moon within a few years and which, when fully assembled, will be 120 meters tall. Elon Musk has called the Starship rocket “the holy grail of space technology,” especially because it is reusable, and has repeatedly said it is critical to his plan to get humans to Mars.

So far, SpaceX has tested several prototypes of the upper part of the Starship system at an altitude of about 10 km. Some exploded on the ground or in flight, but they were also successful, that is, they returned to Earth, the big day was May 5, 2021.

The launch vehicle, effectively the second stage of the four-engine Raptor super rocket, then managed to return safely to the landing zone, firing its engines shortly before touchdown to decelerate almost completely. Between December 2020 and April 2021, four launch vehicle tests were conducted, all of which ended in explosions at various stages.

Musk has talked about a future in which rockets will be “fully and rapidly reusable,” meaning fully reusable and capable of being relaunched very soon after the elements return to Earth. Obviously it’s possible, but only after a lot of testing and accepting that some of the prototypes will be exhausted until the perfect recipe is found.

Sources: space.com, teslarati.com.