It looks like a scene from science fiction: two gleaming silver rocket ships standing side by side under the Texas sun, waiting their turn to fly.
But the shiny, fins SpaceX rockets – Starship SN9 and SN10 prototypes – actually exist and met for the first time on the pillow at the company in South Texas near Boca Chica Village on Friday (January 29). The SN10 vehicle, the latest SpaceX series in a series of new reusable Starship prototypes, rolled to the cushion while its SN9 counterpart awaited its own test flight, which could launch as early as Monday (February 1).
“Starship SN9 & SN10,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Friday when he saw the two suborbital rockets. Camcorders from the tourist website Spadre.com and others also captured the view, including this close-up of NASASpaceflight.com.
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Starship SN9 and SN10 are the latest test versions of a planned fully reusable launch system envisioned by SpaceX to fly astronauts and payloads on deep space missions. SN9 and Sn10 are each powered by three of SpaceX’s Raptor engines and are designed to fly on suborbital test flights up to 10 kilometers.
On December 9, SpaceX launched the Starship SN8 prototype, an earlier version of the vehicle, on a similar test flight. That flight reached an altitude of about 12.5 km (12.5 km) and performed two disturbing turns to return to earth for a landing attempt. . It fails to hold the touch and explodes during impact.
SpaceX hopes for better performance by SN9.
Eagle-eyed SpaceX viewers have been watching the SN9 prototype on its test stand for days while the company had the rocket ready for launch. Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial rockets, said the company had not yet had the final approval to launch.
“The FAA will continue to work with SpaceX to evaluate additional information provided by the company as part of the application to amend its launch license,” an FAA spokesman said in a statement on Friday. told Space.com.
SpaceX’s Starship is 50 meters long and its final version uses six Raptor engines to reach space. It will launch on top of a massive amplifier called the Super Heavy, which will use about 30 Raptor engines to transport Starship vehicles to orbit. Both spacecraft are designed to land on Earth again for later reuse, just like SpaceX’s current fleet of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters.
NASA has chosen SpaceX’s Starship as one of three different designs, each led by a different team, to allow astronauts to fly to the moon as part of the space agency’s Artemis program.
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us on @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.