BOCA CHICA BEACH, Texas â€" After a series of test failures during the ninth test and a separate one, SpaceX is attempting a 10th launch experiment of its Starship on Sunday evening.
The well-known 397-foot-tall (121 meter) uncrewed Starship plans to take off from the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, on Sunday, SpaceX stated.
The launch window will open at 7:30 p.m. ET, for the suborbital test flight.
In an email to the press, SpaceX issued the following warning to area residents.
“Residents of Cameron County and those in the nearby area may hear a loud noise resulting from the rocket’s 33 Raptor engines firing upon ignition and as the vehicle launches toward space, but what people experience will depend on weather and other conditions,†the company stated.
Starship is the spacecraft while the Super Heavy is the rocket booster. When they are stacked together, they are collectively called Starship.
Starship will be part of the Artemis III mission that will send people back to the moon, stated NASA.
This 10th test flight of Starship will see new experiments and objectives.
Such as, after the stage separation of the Super Heavy and Starship, the rocket booster will flip to a controlled direction before doing a boostback burn, which was first demonstrated in the ninth flight back in May of this year.
This allows less fuel to be held in the reserves and the fuel to be used during liftoff. More fuel used during takeoffs means more payloads or heavier payloads can go into orbit.
“The primary test objectives for the booster will be focused on its landing burn and will use unique engine configurations. One of the three center engines used for the final phase of landing will be intentionally disabled to gather data on the ability for a backup engine from the middle ring to complete a landing burn. The booster will then transition to only two center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface,†SpaceX explained.
Unlike some of the previous tests, the booster rocket will not return to the launch tower and be caught by Mechazilla, as it is affectionately called.
Instead, the booster rocket will splash down in the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico.
The upper stage of Starship will have a series of objectives officials hope to meet, such as deploying eight Starlink simulators that are about the same size as the next generation Starlink communication satellites.
In addition to doing experiments that will one day see Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site â€" during many of the tests, the giant ship has splashed down in the Indian Ocean â€" other tests include a number of heatshield tiles removed to see how the vulnerable areas of the spacecraft react during re-entry back down to Earth.
And there are other tests that involve the tiles.
“Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, functional catch fittings are installed and will test the fittings’ thermal and structural performance, along with a section of the tile line receiving a smoothed and tapered edge to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test,†the California-based company explained.
Learn more about the ship’s test flight history through this digital timeline.