SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype just roared live.
The Starship SN10 (‘Serial No. 10’) vehicle performed its first ‘static fire’ test on Tuesday (February 23) and illuminated its three Raptor engines a few seconds at 18:03 EST (2303 GMT) at SpaceX’s . South Texas site, near the Gulf Coast settlement Boca Chica Village.
Static fires, in which engines ignite briefly while a rocket remains anchored to the ground, are a common preview for SpaceX. If all goes well with today’s test, SN10 stays on track to get started soon – maybe already Thursday (February 25) – on a 6-mile (10-kilometer) demonstration flight in South Texas airspace.
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Starship SN10 static fire! Hopefully it was a great test. 🔥🚀🔥 @ NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/J6cVUypRgY23 February 2021
This will be the third high-altitude test for a Starship vehicle, following similar outings in December 2020 and February 2 this year by SN10’s two immediate predecessors, SN8 and SN9. Both flights went well to the end; SN8 and SN9 slam hard on their landing cushions and explode into dramatic fireballs.
Such flights are an important part of the evolutionary path for Starship, which SpaceX considers the vehicle that will make Mars colonization economically feasible. The Starship system will consist of two completely reusable parts: a 50-meter spaceship (Starship) named Starship and a large rocket known as Super Heavy.
The final Starship will have six Raptors, and Super Heavy will have about 30 of the engines, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said. Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself from the moon and Mars, but the spacecraft needs Super Heavy to get off Earth.
We will probably see many more Starship test flights over the coming weeks and months, no matter how the launch of SN10 goes. Musk recently said SpaceX intends to launch a prototype to Earth orbit this year, and he predicts that Starship will transport humans regularly by 2023.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.