Next Starship/Superheavy test set for October 13, 2025
The planned return trajectories for both
Superheavy and Starship on future tests
In an update posted yesterday on SpaceX’s website, the company revealed that it is targeting October 13, 2025 for the eleventh orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.
The update also provided details about the company will test during this flight, including the reuse of a second Superheavy booster.
The booster on this flight test previously flew on Flight 8 and will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines. Its primary test objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy. It will attempt this while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch.
Upon return the booster will start off by firing thirteen engines, the five, and finally three just before landing, to test refinements to its return to Earth.
Starship meanwhile will mostly repeat with variations the test program from flight 10, including the deployment of dummy Starlink satellites, the relight of one of its Raptor engines, and the testing of different thermal protection systems. It will once again fly a low orbital path that will bring it down in the Indian Ocean, either under control or not. This Starship prototype is the last of version two, so there are a limited number of things it can test.
Beginning with the 12th test flight, the company will begin flying version 3, and will likely quickly move to full orbital flights and a chopstick catch of Starship at Boca Chica, as shown by the flight paths in the graphic to the right.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The planned return trajectories for both
Superheavy and Starship on future tests
In an update posted yesterday on SpaceX’s website, the company revealed that it is targeting October 13, 2025 for the eleventh orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.
The update also provided details about the company will test during this flight, including the reuse of a second Superheavy booster.
The booster on this flight test previously flew on Flight 8 and will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines. Its primary test objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy. It will attempt this while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch.
Upon return the booster will start off by firing thirteen engines, the five, and finally three just before landing, to test refinements to its return to Earth.
Starship meanwhile will mostly repeat with variations the test program from flight 10, including the deployment of dummy Starlink satellites, the relight of one of its Raptor engines, and the testing of different thermal protection systems. It will once again fly a low orbital path that will bring it down in the Indian Ocean, either under control or not. This Starship prototype is the last of version two, so there are a limited number of things it can test.
Beginning with the 12th test flight, the company will begin flying version 3, and will likely quickly move to full orbital flights and a chopstick catch of Starship at Boca Chica, as shown by the flight paths in the graphic to the right.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
We’re all gonna die!
Or so suggests Gizmodo:
https://gizmodo.com/spacex-wants-to-fly-its-gigantic-starship-directly-over-florida-2000663730?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Does SpaceX have some reason to think that overflight permission from the Mexican government is a sure thing? Because they can’t get back into Boca Chica from the west without it.
Call Me Ishmael —
It was my understanding that Sputnik — with a wink and a nod from the Eisenhower Administration that had its own plans for overflights over certain rival nations — pretty much obviated the “permission” problem back in 1957, but perhaps I’m missing something. I often am.
What is the actual legal context of this situation?
Milt and Call Me Ishmael: The Outer Space Treaty is very clear about this. Orbital satellites have the right to go over anything. And Starship will be returning from an orbital flight, so Mexico has no say legally.
I am sure however that there will be some discussion to work out some details, but Mexico cannot veto the flight.
Note too that there is ample precedent. The shuttle returned multiple times in landing in Florida, and some of those flights crossed Mexico also.
Was the shuttle still above the Karman line (100 km; 62 miles) when it reached the Gulf of Mexico? If it was below that, the precedent is useful; if not, I’m skeptical. In any case, for returns to Boca Chica, the last part of Starship’s flight path is going to be through what the FAA would consider controlled airspace (below 60,000 ft.). I don’t think “an hour ago, it was in orbit” will make this go away.
Milt wrote: “It was my understanding that Sputnik — with a wink and a nod from the Eisenhower Administration that had its own plans for overflights over certain rival nations — pretty much obviated the “permission” problem back in 1957, but perhaps I’m missing something.”
I don’t remember the name or the author, but there is a book, a couple of decades ago, that describes what Milt is talking about.
Eisenhower was concerned that if one of our military test rockets “accidentally” put one of their reentry test articles into orbit that the Soviets would complain about a military satellite and declare that national airspace includes outer space. When airspace was initially defined, there was no upper limit, so orbiting spacecraft could easily be counted as violating airspace. The only thing that made it seem as though the Soviets would not consider outer space as part of their airspace was when they announced that they, too, would put an artificial satellite into orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year of Earth science. They announced that to respond to the American announcement.
So, Eisenhower saw only upsides to the Soviets beating the U.S. into orbit, because Eisenhower would not complain that our airspace had been violated. Eisenhower already knew that we could make cameras good enough to spy on other countries from space to observe airplanes, ships, buildings, construction, etc. This way, we wouldn’t have to keep sending airplanes over the Soviet Union and risk being shot down. (We lost other airplanes before Gary Powers’s U2. As a response to our planes being shot down, the U2 was made to fly too high to be shot down, but the Soviets adapted.) Eisenhower didn’t foresee the inferred technology gap or the education gap that arose due to Sputnik. It didn’t help that our rockets always blew up or that someone had just published a book Why Johnny Can’t Read.
Sometime after Sputnik had established the legality of orbital overflight, the U.S. began sending up weather satellites. Let me rephrase that: “weather satellites.” Somehow, the weather over the Soviet Union was the most popular for the Corona satellites, and when there were no clouds, the ground was clearly visible, including airplanes, ships, buildings, construction, etc.