Starship will fly again before the summer is over, if all goes according to plan.
SpaceX aims to launch the 10th test flight of Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, about three weeks from now, company founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Monday (July 14).
It will be the fourth launch of the year for Starship, whose two stages — the Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage — are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
It’s been a bumpy path to the launch pad for Flight 10. The Ship upper stage originally slated to fly the mission exploded on a test stand at SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas on June 18, during preparations for a common prelaunch engine trial.
SpaceX soon determined a likely cause — the failure of a pressurized nitrogen tank in Ship’s nosecone area. The company is now working to get a different Ship vehicle ready for Flight 10.
Ship has also had some in-flight issues recently: SpaceX lost the vehicle on Flight 7, Flight 8 and Flight 9, which launched in January, March and May of this year, respectively.
Super Heavy has performed better. On Flight 7 and Flight 8, for example, the booster successfully returned to Starbase, where it was caught by the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms. Flight 9 featured the first-ever reuse of Super Heavy, putting the Flight 7 booster back into action. (SpaceX didn’t attempt to catch the booster again; it broke apart over the Gulf of Mexico during Flight 9, shortly after initiating a landing burn.)
SpaceX plans to employ the chosticks recovery strategy for both Super Heavy and Ship over the long haul, making the reuse of each stage more efficient.
