SpaceX has launched its massive Starship rocket eight times and caught the super-heavy launch vehicle in a giant mechanical hug three times, the Mechazilla. Unlike the upper stage of the Starship, the booster is now ready for the next steps on the road to launch, landing and reuse.
In a post published on Thursday, SpaceX announced that it is preparing to launch a super-heavy booster that has flown before. The launch vehicle has already taken off and returned during the seventh test flight on January 16, and 29 of the 33 Raptor engines have been “flight tested,” the company wrote on X.
SpaceX conducted a static fire test of the launch vehicle before Flight 9, the first test of a super-heavy launch vehicle that has already reached the edge of space, Ars Technica reporter Stephen Clark notes. During the next Starship test flight, the accelerator, dubbed Booster 14, will fly into space again. If this happens, it will be the first launch vehicle that has already been in flight to be launched again. SpaceX has not yet announced the date of the next Starship launch.
SpaceX has made significant progress with the 232-foot (71-meter) high Starship super-heavy launch vehicle, managing to put it into orbit on three of its four attempts. However, the same cannot be said for the rocket’s upper stage, which suffered back-to-back failures during the last two test flights.
During the 7th flight in January, the upper stage of the Starship suffered an engine failure that led to an early shutdown, causing it to break apart and the rocket debris to fall over Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. Less than two months later, during Flight 8, the upper stage suffered another serious malfunction, spinning uncontrollably before breaking apart a few minutes after launch. Both times, the upper stage had to make a soft landing off the coast of Western Australia about an hour after takeoff.
Starship is a reusable launch vehicle, which means that both its super-heavy booster and upper stage, known as the Ship, must be caught in midair by a 400-foot-tall Mechazilla tower. So far, things are going well with the launch vehicle.
