SpaceX completes full duration static fire test of Superheavy prototype #21
SpaceX yesterday successfully completed a full duration static fire test of Superheavy prototype #21, the booster it plans to use on the 14th Starship/Superheavy test flight, now believed to be tentatively scheduled for mid-September and the first targeting one or more full orbits.
I have embedded the video below.
The company has also completed static fire tests of the Starship (#41), the ship that will fly that mission. At this moment it appears there is nothing standing in the way of that flight, other than weather.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.
Booster 21 has performed a full duration Static Fire test 🔥
🎥: @LabPadre pic.twitter.com/Mcm3HWOmSV
— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) August 28, 2026
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If they do decide to do a couple of orbits, where do they put Starship down? I would think out in the Gulf, fairly close to Starbase.
There is speculation that the FAA does not want SpaceX to do the initial orbital reentry over land in case there are problems which could spread debris. That means they would have to do reentry over open ocean. That would preclude landing in the Gulf of America.
Or, re-enter over Canada (stuff it, CAA), and land in Lake America. Which, by the way, messes up the most common mnemonic for remembering Great Lakes names, HOMES. Now, it’s HAMES. No one is going to remember that.
To BMJ and Great White Northerner’s: it’s a jest! Please don’t send a polar air mass my way!
It is quite a good engineering choice to be able to do this test on a regular launch pad rather than having to make the more expensive politically driven solution, which would be to create an entirely different facility in some other congressional district.
So, with MV Forte/Ship-40 steaming for home…will the other ships hang around to grapple the next Starship?
Probably not. I am guessing that they will do the entire reentry flightpath and put Ship 41 down a few km offshore Boca Chic, which would allow it to be recovered at the Port of Brownsville should it survive falling over. Cheers –
I am a bit more bullish on the idea of a combination of a float/ballute hybrid due to this new finding:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-crumples-inflatable-membranes-multiple-stable.html
Here is my thinking process:
Keep tiles on control surfaces only—the structures that jut out above and to either side of the inflatable.
If the landing burn is going fine–jettison and go chopsticks only for the catch… otherwise keep the float.
Jeff, this is impractical, because a ballute is a poor fit for the trajectory Starship has to fly. It would also take considerable testing to determine if we could even build one to slow a vehicle the size of Starship that wouldn’t be destroyed by the loads at high dynamic pressure. With how Starship performed on Flight 13, there’s every reason to think using the existing heat shield is the preferable option.
There’s no good reason to add extra failure modes, extra cost, to slow down/delay development, unless one absolutely has to, and thus a ballute is a nonstarter. They’re better fits for something with a low ballistic coefficient.