SpaceX launching Starship test flight from Texas this week with dummy satellites
- by Dallas Morning News
- Jan 15, 2025
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Un cohete Starship de SpaceX se alista para un vuelo de prueba desde Starbase, el lunes 18 de noviembre de 2024, en Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Foto/Eric Gay, Archivo)
(Eric Gay / AP)
SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket is slated to launch for the seventh time on Thursday in a crucial test of its ability to carry and place satellites into orbit.
The company planned on launching from its Boca Chica, Texas manufacturing facility on Wednesday but announced a 24-hour delay due to weather conditions.
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The 403-foot-tall (123-meter) rocket will try to deploy 10 dummy satellites, designed to mimic the size, shape and weight of the upgraded Starlink satellites that Starship will be launching in the future.
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This will be the first time the world’s heaviest and most powerful rocket attempts to deploy payloads, an important milestone in readying the rocket for operational use. The dummy satellites will not remain in space but will eventually be dragged back to Earth.
As in previous test flights, the upper portion of the rocket will take a similar path back to Earth, undertaking a controlled plunge into the Indian Ocean. SpaceX will also attempt to use giant mechanical arms to “catch” the rocket’s Super Heavy lower portion — the same stunning engineering maneuver it completed during the rocket’s fifth test flight in October.
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Showing that recovery of the Starship Super Heavy booster is possible again is critical to the developmental progress of the vehicle, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long touted will be fully reusable.
During the rocket’s sixth test flight on Nov. 19, attended by President-elect Donald Trump, SpaceX skipped the booster catch, citing technical issues. If conditions for the catch are again not met during this launch, the booster will instead land in the Gulf of Mexico.
The rocket will also attempt to reignite one of its six Raptor engines during the flight, a feat it achieved for the first time during the vehicle’s sixth test. Such re-ignition is essential to Musk’s eventual goal of landing on Mars because it would allow Starship to perform mid-flight maneuvers and control its descent.
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In the past, some of Starship’s launches have ended with explosions and other damage to the vehicle — emblems of SpaceX’s fly-fail-fix iterative approach to engineering. SpaceX said that for this launch, it upgraded the rocket’s heat shield — designed to cushion the extreme heat and forces as it plunges through the atmosphere.
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Other upgrades to the vehicle include a redesigned propulsion system, more powerful flight computer and additional cameras for flight monitoring, according to the company.
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