The preparation is coming to an end, SpaceX is only waiting for authorization to take off this Thursday, March 14 for a third flight test of its gigantic Starship-Superheavy launcher. The teams will be keen to confirm their progress from the second launch, and will attempt to go further. NASA is watching…
Regardless of how this third attempt at Starship ends, the spectacle will be there. Because it is nothing more and nothing less than the largest and most powerful launcher in the world, with its 120 meters high and its 5,000 tons on the scale. After the conclusion of the investigation into the second flight, the rocket is assembled, and its automated destruction system is already in place: all that remains is to receive official authorization for this new test takeoff. SpaceX has already prepared the ground and the firing window is currently scheduled for Thursday March 14 at 12:30 p.m. (Paris). If the countdown is delayed, teams will have two hours to get Starship off the ground, otherwise it will have to be postponed.
On the way to further improvements
The improvements on this third takeoff in a year are numerous. First on the ground installations, which are now more powerful and more resistant. New tanks make it possible to fill the two stages (Superheavy, which takes off the whole thing, then Starship) in just 40 minutes with liquid methane and super-cooled oxygen. The rest of the installations were reinforced again, and the teams did not count their hours to test and retest the various equipment, such as the water deluge system.
The Superheavy B10 booster which will fly on Thursday also has several new features, some planned since its design (such as an improvement in the orientation control of the thrust of the engines) and others put in place after the explosion during flight n °2. In particular, SpaceX has worked to be able to better control the flows in the tanks to restart the engines in order to slow down the stage and bring it back to land on Earth. Finally, the Starship SN28 is no exception, with improvements on the engine and tank side, an improved coating so that its thermal tiles hold better and a functional system for testing the future ejection of Starlink satellites.
And on the way to the Indian Ocean!
Just like the last tests, this Starship flight is not quite orbital, it is aiming for a trajectory which would in no case allow it to go around the Earth (approximately 250 x 50 km). And even if it does not explode on its way to space, it is planned to maneuver Starship when it is beyond the Karman line (100 km). First inside, a demonstration is planned to show NASA a transfer of propellants between two tanks in weightlessness. But also and above all, it is planned to restart the raptor engines in orbital flight conditions to slow down Starship and bring it through the atmosphere in a controlled manner to land, if possible gently, in the Indian Ocean.
While it is unlikely that SpaceX will achieve absolutely all objectives during this new test, only four months after the previous one, the goal is above all to show and validate progress with the different vehicles. The pace is accelerating… Will this flight be successful?
Source : Ars Technica
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