SpaceX Prepares for Third Starship Launch After Explosive Test
Just a month after its latest liftoff, SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket is getting ready to fly again. Despite the spectacular explosions that ended its second test mission on November 18, the company is gearing up for the next try.
“Flight 3 vehicles on the pad at Starbase for testing ahead of Starship’s next launch,” SpaceX announced in a tweet today, sharing three photos of the spacecraft involved. Starbase is SpaceX’s South Texas site, which serves as the center for Starship manufacturing, testing, and launch.
The Starship Super Heavy vehicle known as Booster 10 is seen at SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas during testing ahead of Starship’s third flight. Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, consists of two reusable stages: A first-stage booster known as Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall spacecraft called Starship. SpaceX is developing the vehicle to help get humanity to the moon and Mars, and to perform a variety of other spaceflight tasks as well.
SpaceX has already flown the Starship twice, on April 20 and November 18 of this year, with both missions aiming to send the upper-stage spacecraft most of the way around Earth to a Pacific Ocean splashdown zone near Hawaii.
The first flight ended in just four minutes, and the Nov. 18 mission was more successful, with Super Heavy’s 33 Raptors acing their initial burn, and the booster separating successfully from the Starship upper stage. However, both vehicles exploded during their descent back to Earth.
Now, the company is preparing for a third test flight, despite an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) into the mishap of the Nov. 18 flight. The FAA will not grant SpaceX a launch license for the upcoming flight until the investigation is over and any corrective actions have been implemented.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk had previously stated that the third Starship vehicle should be ready to fly by the end of the year, and the current testing at Starbase shows that the company is committed to moving forward with the development of its ambitious rocket.