SpaceX continues to progress in the direction of the fourth flight of Starship following a profitable static fireplace of Ship 29.
Ship 29 lit all 6 Raptor engines for round 4 seconds on sub-orbital pad B at Starbase, sending up an enormous cloud of mud, and as soon as the mud cleared, Ship 29 was nonetheless standing, simply lacking just a few warmth protect tiles.
SpaceX could conduct one other static fireplace check just like what they did with Ship 28 by lighting one Raptor engine to simulate a de-orbit burn. If that goes effectively, the subsequent main step for Ship 29 will probably be stacking on high of Booster 11 for a Moist Costume Rehearsal nearer to the 4th check flight.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s President and COO, lately stated they’re nonetheless reviewing the entire knowledge obtained from the third check flight whereas placing collectively a mishap report for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Kevin Coleman of the FAA stated they didn’t anticipate something main to pop up in the course of the investigation that might delay the 4th check flight, which may happen as quickly as Could. Coleman indicated they thought of the check flight successful, with no vital security methods compromised.
Again on the Starbase manufacturing web site, Booster 4 was minimize in half to be scrapped. Booster 4 was first rolled to the launch web site in March 2021 and was predicted to be the primary to fly, however with the speedy adjustments SpaceX made, the booster was deemed out of date.
In addition to Booster 11, which is about to fly the 4th check flight, there are a minimum of 6 different identified boosters in varied levels of manufacturing, and for the Starships, there are 8 Starships both constructed or in progress.
When do you suppose the 4th check flight will happen if testing retains going easily?
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