SpaceX’s Starship SN9 prototype set the engine on fire for the first time

SpaceX has started up its newest Starship model for the first time.

The SN9 vehicle’s three motors lit up for around one second today (Jan. 6) at 5:07 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) during a static-fire test at SpaceX’s South Texas facilities, close to the Gulf Coast town of Boca Chica.

Static fires, in which rocket motors burst while a vehicle remains anchored to the ground, are a routine preflight checkout. Also, SN9 (“Serial No. 9”) will to be sure make ground soon, if all works out as expected: SpaceX is preparing the vehicle for an experimental drill that is required to be like the epic one made a month ago by its predecessor.

On Dec. 9, SN8 — which was controlled by three of SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engines, as SN9 is — played out the Starship program’s first-since forever high-height hop, taking off about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) into the South Texas skies. (Three past single-motor models have flown too, however they all arrived at a greatest altitude of around 500 feet, or 150 meters.)

SN8 didn’t stick its finish and detonated in an dramatic fireball. However, the vehicle hit essentially every other achievement that SpaceX had spread out, driving company author and CEO Elon Musk to proclaim the flight a major achievement.

SpaceX is creating Starship to take individuals and payloads to the moon, Mars and other removed objections — and, in the long run, to assume control over all of the company’s spaceflight requires. The framework consists of two components: a 165-foot-tall (50 m) shuttle called Starship and a goliath first-stage supporter known as Super Heavy.

Both Starship and Super Heavy will be completely and quickly reusable, Musk has said. Super Heavy will return to Earth for vertical arrivals in the wake of getting Starship on high, as the primary phases of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as of now do.

In any case, Starship’s scores will be significantly more exact than those of the Falcons, in a perfect world happening straightforwardly on the dispatch remain to improve turnaround time, Musk reported recently.

The Starship rocket, then, will make numerous roundtrips among Earth and Mars, or whatever other objective has been focused on.

The vehicle simply needs the about 30-motor Super Heavy to get off our generally massive planet; the last, six-motor Starship will be sufficiently amazing to dispatch itself off the surfaces of the moon and Mars, Musk has said.

The present static fire was caught on video by committed Starship watchers like the travel industry webpage Spadre.com, which webcasts live Starship sees on YouTube. It may not be the only such test performed by SN9 before it takes off. For instance, SN8 led four static fires throughout the span of over a month in front of its high-altitude hop.