The Super Heavy booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff. The upcoming orbital test flight will mark the first-ever launch of a Super Heavy as well as the first liftoff of a six-engine Starship. While SpaceX has performed a number of Starship test launches, those have involved prototype upper-stage vehicles with a maximum of three Raptor engines that flew just 10 kilometres high. It’s a challenge to build so many engines, but SpaceX is on track to have enough for the first Starship orbital test flight soon, Musk said Starship and Super Heavy are both designed to be completely and rapidly reusable, and both will be powered by SpaceX’s new Raptor engine – 33 for Super Heavy and six for Starship. However, this depends on the environmental review of Starship launch operations by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), being conducted at Starbase, SpaceX’s facility in South Texas.Īccording to FAA officials, the assessment is expected to be completed by March 28. “We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully in May for orbital flight test,” Musk said in a tweet. The vehicle consists of two elements: a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, reported. SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket will “hopefully” take its first orbital flight in May, company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.
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