SpaceX schedules likely first static fire tests for orbital Starship and Superheavy
Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scheduled a weeklong series of road closures at Boca Chica, beginning next week, suggesting they are about to begin the first static fire tests for the orbital prototypes of both Starship (#20) and Superheavy (#4).
The company has been installing or replacing engines on both prototypes, with the installation apparently now complete on Starship #20.
Starship’s current design features three gimballing sea-level Raptors and three vacuum-optimized variants with much larger nozzles – all in close proximity inside a 9m-wide (30 ft) skirt. As such, the first Starship static fire with any combination of Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines will be a significant milestone for SpaceX. Eventually, that will likely culminate in the first static fire(s) of a Starship (likely S20) with all six Raptors installed – a test that will effectively qualify that prototype for its first orbital launch attempt.
As for Superheavy #4, they have been replacing some of its 29 engines while it sits on the launchpad, for reasons that are not clear.
It appears the company is aiming to get all of its ground-testing completed while the FAA’s approval process for the permit for the orbital flight is ongoing. This will make it possible to launch as soon as approval is obtained.
This strategy carries some risk. As long as the testing proceeds smoothly it will provide positive coverage during the FAA’s public comment period, running until mid-October. Should a test fail dramatically, however, the explosion could generate the wrong response during that comment period. Not surprisingly, SpaceX is willing to accept that risk.
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Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scheduled a weeklong series of road closures at Boca Chica, beginning next week, suggesting they are about to begin the first static fire tests for the orbital prototypes of both Starship (#20) and Superheavy (#4).
The company has been installing or replacing engines on both prototypes, with the installation apparently now complete on Starship #20.
Starship’s current design features three gimballing sea-level Raptors and three vacuum-optimized variants with much larger nozzles – all in close proximity inside a 9m-wide (30 ft) skirt. As such, the first Starship static fire with any combination of Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines will be a significant milestone for SpaceX. Eventually, that will likely culminate in the first static fire(s) of a Starship (likely S20) with all six Raptors installed – a test that will effectively qualify that prototype for its first orbital launch attempt.
As for Superheavy #4, they have been replacing some of its 29 engines while it sits on the launchpad, for reasons that are not clear.
It appears the company is aiming to get all of its ground-testing completed while the FAA’s approval process for the permit for the orbital flight is ongoing. This will make it possible to launch as soon as approval is obtained.
This strategy carries some risk. As long as the testing proceeds smoothly it will provide positive coverage during the FAA’s public comment period, running until mid-October. Should a test fail dramatically, however, the explosion could generate the wrong response during that comment period. Not surprisingly, SpaceX is willing to accept that risk.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
I’m glad they are taking the risk. The worst case scenario is that SpaceX gets delayed in launching. But an explosion will definitely delay things anyway
The FAA`s public hearing on this is a farce.They require to much info on every individual to comment.
Who wants to give up their personal info to hoardes of brownshirts? ..Its not Spacex on the hotseat its
the FAA.
Here is to hoping the pairing of Starship/Super-Heavy makes like Rocketship- Orbit Jet…not like Grandcamp and High Flyer did a few miles up the coast nearly 3/4s of a century ago….I just turned 55 on midnight…born in 66′ oo 9/22. The numerologists would have a field day. I am as old as Star Trek…was probably conceived the hour Korolev did nine months earlier, around the time the Saturn V contract lapsed. I was given up for adoption…and was told the matron found that while I enjoyed attention…”I did not need it…”
I have always been lamenting what could have been…and wasn’t.
Maybe one Tarot card I was dealt by a co-worker was accurate after all:
The King of Rods. Less pompous actually than it could be. Tell me Robert…is it true that in Jewish tradition…there is the concept of the unknown just…a figure where even when bathed in God’s light and love for a thousand years…the tears still come?
I was working on a contract with the FAA at the Volpe Center in Cambridge. Talk I heard as far back as 2000 was about how much better performance and credibility the space industry could have if it were like the airline industry with FAA regulation. Not micromanaged as with NASA.
It is very dangerous to link successful tests to FAA approval.. First off, there is no logical link. Second, it goes against the entire development process t work here. It is inherently risky which many would call reckless. The first failue could be your last if you give into this mindset.
I think people are overly dramatizing this issue. ell, maybe I hope they are because if you are controlled by the US Gov you might as well go home.