SpaceX: We want to fly next Starship/Superheavy test launch on March 14, 2024
In a tweet yesterday SpaceX announced an update on its Starship webpage, outlining its plans for the third orbital test launch of its heavy-lift Starship/Superheavy rocket, with March 14, 2024 listed as the hoped-for launch date.
The update began with these cautionary words, “pending regulatory approval,” and then went on to describe details of the test flight:
The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.
I suspect the change in the splashdown location, from northeast of the main island of Hawaii, was instigated by the FAA for those “public safety reasons”. From SpaceX’s perspective, this is an easy give, as a slightly shorter flight makes little difference for this test, and it allows the company to test that Raptor engine by firing that de-orbit burn.
Will the flight occur on March 14th? The odds are high, partly because this SpaceX announcement is designed to put pressure on the bureaucrats at the FAA to finish their paperwork already. At the same time, bureaucrats sometimes love to stick it to private citizens, just for fun. We shall see.
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In a tweet yesterday SpaceX announced an update on its Starship webpage, outlining its plans for the third orbital test launch of its heavy-lift Starship/Superheavy rocket, with March 14, 2024 listed as the hoped-for launch date.
The update began with these cautionary words, “pending regulatory approval,” and then went on to describe details of the test flight:
The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.
I suspect the change in the splashdown location, from northeast of the main island of Hawaii, was instigated by the FAA for those “public safety reasons”. From SpaceX’s perspective, this is an easy give, as a slightly shorter flight makes little difference for this test, and it allows the company to test that Raptor engine by firing that de-orbit burn.
Will the flight occur on March 14th? The odds are high, partly because this SpaceX announcement is designed to put pressure on the bureaucrats at the FAA to finish their paperwork already. At the same time, bureaucrats sometimes love to stick it to private citizens, just for fun. We shall see.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
I would like to see them complete one full orbit or a few before attempting reentry on one of these test flights.
I wonder if this change factors in the safety should the re-light NOT work as expected? Starship is a massive vehicle and structural components will make landfall if it de-orbits in an uncontrolled manner. So, perhaps this new plan minimizes the risk of an uncontrolled re-entry in some way. They don’t want a Long March 5 after all.
I agree with David. A full orbit or two gives them plenty of time to test a wide variety of things connected with potential on-orbit refueling. Of course, that is likely planned for subsequent missions, but strike while the iron is hot!
Okay, OT a bit.
Take an HLS, and instead of removing the Elonerons, change their rotation axis so that they move up and down fore and aft from the perspective of an HLS Pilot. Put landing pads on the lower outboard corners. Move the Draco thrusters from around the upper part of the fuselage to the Elonerons, facing down parallel to the landing legs, roughly like jet engines mounted on an airliner wing. You’re done (mostly). 😉
You now have a Starship that can still land on the Moon vertically, but in a horizontal orientation. The major orbital delta-v stuff can still be done by the main engines, with Dracos doing the initial lunar takeoff and final lunar landing. It can fly between LEO and the lunar surface as many times as you put propellant in it, and point-to-point on the Moon too!
Okay, you probably wouldn’t use hypergolic Dracos. But no tipping over, no huge elevator. You’re welcome, Elon!
Ps. Forgot to add… you can launch it from Earth too – once!
This order to land in the Indian Ocean sort of puts the craft in the position of being found by China first.
Is Joe willing to send Navy ships out for it and are they willing to fight for it?
This is a private space craft and thus not exactly military hardware that the US Navy would normally go out and get.
Now why did the administration order them to land there?
Are we going to see the Big Joe finally go to Space X for a launch? Is is the only president to not watch one and it is election time.