SpaceX, on December 10, conducted a static fire test of its Starship Super Heavy Booster at the Starbase facility in Texas. The test was part of the preparations for the flight which could happen as soon as January 2025.
Taking to social media, SpaceX shared a video and pictures from the test where the 232-feet-tall Booster stood on the launch mount and its 33 raptor engines were briefly fired.
Static fire of the Flight 7 Super Heavy booster pic.twitter.com/xqfykcq7QU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 9, 2024
The next flight will be Starship’s seventh. Flight 6 took place on November 20 and was largely successful. The only point where SpaceX fell short was catching the Super Heavy Booster using the launch tower due to a technical issue.
Reports have hinted that SpaceX will try launching the rocket on January 11, 2025 but an official announcement from the company is yet to be made.
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Getting ready for Flight 7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2024
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also hinted that the launch might happen soon as he reposted pictures of the test fire with the caption, “Getting ready for flight 7.”
According to an email sent by NASA to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency wants to use its Gulfstream V jet to observe the Starship mission. It will gather data on the rocket’s upper stage’s atmospheric reentry from the sky.
The 400-feet-tall Starship not only matters for SpaceX to ride to Mars but also to NASA, which wants to use it for landing astronauts on the Moon. The agency has paid SpaceX nearly $4 billion to develop rockets that would take humans to the lunar surface in more than five decades. Starship will be used by NASA during Artemis 3, the Moon landing mission that has been pushed to mid-2027.
Musk has previously said that the mega rocket will reach Mars in the next four years and if all goes well with its landing on the red planet, we might soon see astronauts leave for Mars as well.
ALSO SEE: Elon Musk ‘Highly Confident’ About Sending Starships To Mars By 2026
(Image: SpaceX)
