Spacex's starship megarocket will fly against this week, if all goes according to plan.
The company announced today (Feb. 24) That it aims to launch starship, the biggest and most powerful Rockt Ever Built, for the eighth time on Friday (Feb. 28), Pending Regulatory Approle.
The 403.5-Foot-Tall (123 meters) Fully Reusable Vehicle will lift off from star (2330 gmt; 5:30 PM Local Texas Time). You'll be able to watch it live; Spacex will stream the launch begging about 40 minutes before lift.
The most recent flight took place on jan. 16. That mission was a partial success; Spacex Caught Starship's Giant First-Stage Booster, Known as Super Heavy, with the “Chopstick” Arms of the Starbase Launch Tower as planned.
Ship, The Rockt's 171-Foot-Tall (52 M) Upper Stage, Was Supposed to Deploy a payload for the first time on flight 7-10 Mockups of Spacex's Starlink Internet Satellites-Circle Much of the Globe and Then splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch. That didn Bollywood, however; The upper stage broke apart over the atlantic ocean about 8.5 minutes 8.5 minutes into flight, apparently due to a propellant leak.
The goals on flight 8 will be similar. Spacex will go for another super heavy chopsticks catch, while ship will try to deploy mock starlink satellites – Four of that that time – Before Coming Down in the Indian Ocean.
“The starlink simulators will be on the same Suborbital Trajectory as starship and are expected to demise upon entry,” The company of wrote in today's update. “A relief of a single raptor engine with in space is also planned.”
(The full starship vehicle features 39 raptor engines – 33 on super heavy and six on ship.)
Related: Spacex Catches Super Heavy Booster on Starship Flight 7 Test But Loses Upper Stage (Video, Photos)
Starship Flight 7 Breaking Up and Re-Enering Over Turks and caicos pic.twitter.com/iuq0yay17oJanuary 16, 2025
The super heavy flying this mission sports upgrades over its predacesors, Including Advanced Avionics and a more powerful flight computer, spacex wrote in the update.
The company made some changes to ship as well, many of which will test the vehicle's ability to come back to earth for Chopstic Catches in the future.
“A Significant Number of Tiles Have Been Removed from Starship to Stress-Test Vulnerable Areas Across the Vehicle. Materials for Protecting starship during renentry, “spacex wrote in the update.
“Developmental Testing by definition is unpredictable,” The company added. “But by putting flight hardware in a flight environment as frequent as possible, we're able to quickly to learn and exacute design changes as we seek to bring starship on Rapidly Reusable Vehicle. “
