In probably one of the last steps ahead of SpaceX’s next large-scale Starship launch attempt, it appears that the company successfully passed Starship Serial Number 9 (SN9) through the first three-Raptor fire test.
Relatively late in a test window that opened at 08:00 CST (UTC-6) but was later moved to noon, SpaceX’s first Starship SN9 static fire attempt started in earnest around 15:15 CST. Indicated by the venting of activity on the propellant farm that prepared and loaded liquid oxygen and methane on Starships, slight adjustments were observed in the test flow, but the static fire occurred more or less as expected at 16:07.
SN9 quickly lit all three of its Raptors in succession and shut down the engines in 1.5-2 seconds – extremely short compared to all previous nominal Starhopper or Starship-mounted Raptor fires. Prolonged followers immediately noticed the small difference, speculating that it could have been an interruption of the ignition, or that it could have been intentionally shortened to damage the concrete surface of the road (an incident that occurred several times during recent tests ).
Not long before the brief static fire, SpaceX extended the end of its test window on January 6 (in the form of road closure notices) from 5pm to 8pm. Oddly enough, rather than the expected response to unleash Starship and reopen the way to a successful test, SpaceX SN9 essentially reclaimed and launched a separate test around 6pm. The road was never reopened and a SpaceX team never returned to the road between tests, indicating that the company had encountered a small hardware or software error earlier in the day.
It is unclear what the purpose of the second attempt was, and it is more or less impossible to know with confirmation from CEO Elon Musk. It is possible – if unlikely – that the first static fire went exactly as planned, and that the follow-up test was a simple data collection of a wet dress rehearsal (WDR). Be that as it may, after a surprising downpour that engulfed Starship SN9 minutes shortly before, it appears that the second test broke down in the propellant conditioning and loading for about 30 minutes, causing a complete WDR and / or static fire prevent.
According to a test notice received on January 6 by NASAS spaceflight contributor and photographer Mary (bocachicagal), another test window is available on January 7 if Wednesday’s test was partially unsuccessful. In a rare case, the hand-spreading warning from SpaceX to residents preceded any additional planned roadblock, the last of which was lifted on January 6th.
On January 5, SpaceX received a trio of temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) from the FAA enabling the company to restrict access to nearby airspace for attempts to launch Starship ships on January 8, 9 and 10. In the absence of an unequivocally successful static fire, it is highly unlikely – but not impossible – that Starship will be ready for a launch attempt during one of the three windows. Still, it’s safe to say that SN9 is likely to be less than a week away from its first flight – expected to be a carbon copy of SN8’s 12.5km (7.8 miles) launch and landing effort – if SpaceX is a static fire in full duration in the next day or two.