The company gave the "chopstick" arms of its launch tower a workout recently to gear up for the big day.

Closeup of Super Heavy's base during the recent lift operation, showing the booster's 33 Raptor engines. (Image credit: SpaceX

 

SpaceX is gearing up to make spaceflight history again.

During the next test flight of its Starship megarocket, SpaceX plans to catch the vehicle's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, using the "chopstick" arms of the launch tower at its Starbase site in South Texas.

SpaceX is known for its trailblazing achievements in rocket reuse, but this would be next-level. Landing a booster back on the launch mount — rather than on a ship at sea or on a designated touchdown pad on terra firma — would slash the time needed for inspection and refurbishment, enabling much more efficient reflight, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.

The chopstick arms were designed to lift Starship's two elements — Super Heavy and the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper stage, called Starship or simply "Ship" — onto the launch mount. SpaceX has been practicing with the arms recently in anticipation of expanding their role, as the company revealed today (Sept. 20) in a post on X.

"Starbase tower lifts the Super Heavy booster for Flight 5 to expected catch height," SpaceX wrote in the post, which shared four photos of the operation.

As that post notes, the upcoming liftoff will be the fifth for Starship, a 400-foot-tall (122 m) vehicle that SpaceX thinks will make Mars settlement and other ambitious exploration feats economically feasible.

 

Starship's four flights to date occurred in April and November of 2023 and March and June of this year.

The rocket has performed better on each successive liftoff. For example, the debut mission lasted just four minutes; SpaceX sent a detonation command after Starship's two stages failed to separate as planned and the vehicle began to tumble in the skies over South Texas.

But the most recent launch was a complete success, according to SpaceX. Super Heavy and Ship separated on time, and the latter reached orbital velocity as planned. Both stages returned to Earth intact, surviving their trips through the atmosphere and splashing down in the ocean (in two different parts of the world).

 

SpaceX says it has been ready to launch Starship's fifth test flight since early August, but the liftoff is likely still several months away. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said it needs more time to assess the potential environment impact of the launch, and to assess modifications SpaceX made to the Starship vehicle and flight plan after Flight 4. That review isn't expected to be done until late November.

SpaceX is not happy about the delay. Last week, it published a lengthy blog post criticizing the FAA's pace of operations and the regulatory environment for launch providers more generally.

Quelle: SC

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Update: 9.10.2024

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Starship's fifth flight test could launch as soon as October 13, pending regulatory approval.

A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app. The launch window will open as early as 7:00 a.m. CT. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates.

Flight 4 was a tremendous success. A fully successful ascent was followed by the first ever booster soft-landing in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship making it through a brilliant reentry, before its own landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

The fifth flight test of Starship will aim to take another step towards full and rapid reusability. The primary objectives will be attempting the first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster and another Starship reentry and landing burn, aiming for an on-target splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.

Extensive upgrades ahead of this flight test have been made to hardware and software across Super Heavy, Starship, and the launch and catch tower infrastructure at Starbase. SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success. We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only be attempted if conditions are right.

Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch attempt of the Super Heavy booster, which will require healthy systems on the booster and tower and a manual command from the mission’s Flight Director. If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

The returning booster will slow down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone. Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers.

Starship will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled reentry and soft water landing of Starship.

One of the key upgrades on Starship ahead of flight was a complete rework of its heatshield, with SpaceX technicians spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer-generation tiles, a backup ablative layer, and additional protections between the flap structures. This massive effort, along with updates to the ship’s operations and software for reentry and landing burn, will look to improve upon the previous flight and bring Starship to a soft splashdown at the target area in the Indian Ocean.

With each flight building on the learnings from the last, testing improvements in hardware and operations across every facet of Starship, we’re on the verge of demonstrating techniques fundamental to Starship’s fully and rapidly reusable design. By continuing to push our hardware in a flight environment, and doing so as safely and frequently as possible, we’ll rapidly bring Starship online and revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space.

Quelle: SpaceX

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Update: 10.10.2024

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SpaceX says its next Starship launch could fly as early as Oct. 13, pending FAA approval