Watch SpaceX launch Starship seven flight with Starlink satellite test

SpaceX launched the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday as the company looks to push further development of the mammoth vehicle, including a crucial test of how it will deploy satellites.

The company launched the Starship from its private “Starbase” facility in Brownsville, Texas shortly after 5:30 p.m.

A few minutes later, the rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster returned to Earth at the launch site, in SpaceX’s second successful “capture” flight.

There are no people on the Starship flight. However, Elon Musk‘s company is flying 10 “Starlink simulators” in the rocket’s payload bay and plans to try to deploy the satellite-like objects once in space. This a a key test of the rocket’s capabilitiesBecause SpaceX needs Starship to deploy its much larger and heavier generation of Starlink satellites.

Although SpaceX did not specify what the Starlink simulators are made of, mass simulators are commonly used in the development of rocket vehicles, and are often simple metal or concrete structures that weigh the same as the object itself. Since the rocket does not reach orbit, the simulators are expected to follow a similar trajectory to the rocket and are designed to burn up on re-entry.

Assuming the launch goes according to plan, the Starship would reach space and then travel to the center of the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff.

The rocket booster returned after separating from the Starship and landed in the arms of the company’s launch tower – a feat accomplished by the company. fifth flight but he lost in the sixth.

As with each previous flight, SpaceX aims to push development further by evaluating additional capabilities of the Starship, including its heat shield slabs and its intense re-entry trajectory.

The Starship is central to the company’s plans, as well as his own A valuation of $350 billion and already the leading position in the space industry.

Starship is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully loaded on the Super Heavy booster, the Starship is 403 meters tall and about 30 feet in diameter. SpaceX has so far flown the entire Starship rocket system in six spaceflight tests since April 2023, at an ever-increasing cadence.

The Super Heavy booster, 232 meters high, is what starts the rocket’s journey into space. At its core are 33 Raptor engines, which together generate 16.7 million pounds of thrust — twice the 8.8 million pounds of thrust on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. It was released in 2022.

The Starship itself, at a height of 171 meters, has six Raptor engines: three for use in the Earth’s atmosphere and three for operation in vacuum.

The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The entire system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant to launch.

The Starship flying in this launch, labeled as Ship 33, also represents a second-generation version of the vehicle, called “Block 2.”

SpaceX notes that the vehicle’s “significant upgrades” include changes to the vehicle’s nose flaps, a redesign of its propulsion system for increased performance, an improved flight computer, 30 cameras mounted on the rocket control vehicle, and a strengthened heat shield. .

It also has a Raptor booster engine reused for this flight attempt. That engine flew on its fifth test flight last year.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also central to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multimillion-dollar contract to use the agency’s Starship as a lunar landing crew as part of NASA’s Artemis lunar program.