Ship 42 is done with its homework. SpaceX said Wednesday that the Starship slated for Flight 15 has finished its static fires: a full-duration burn of all six Raptor engines, plus a single-engine firing that simulated a deorbit burn. Its booster already passed its own test, so both stages for the flight that’s supposed to catch a Starship upper stage for the first time are now cleared on the test stand.
SpaceX confirmed it on X on Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 12:10 PM ET / 9:10 AM PT (Thursday, Oct. 29 at 1:10 AM JST), with video from the stand and from inside the engine bay.
One engine, then six
The tests ran back to back at SpaceX’s Massey’s site near Starbase, Texas. The single-Raptor firing came Monday night, Oct. 26, local time, as NASASpaceflight showed live. The six-engine run followed on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at about 4:45 PM CT (5:45 PM ET / 2:45 PM PT, or Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 6:45 AM JST) and lasted a little over 60 seconds, according to Starlust and Next Spaceflight.
Why light one engine first? On a real mission the ship doesn’t always fire all six. A deorbit burn, the push that brings Starship back down from orbit, can use just one, so SpaceX checks that mode on the ground before it matters in space. All three Starship V3 flights so far have prepped this way, Starlust notes. Booster 22 did its part on Sunday, Oct. 25, with all 33 Raptors lit for a full-duration burn, and has since rolled back to Mega Bay 1.
Ship 42 heads to Mega Bay 2 next for final outfitting and a load of Starlink V3 satellites. Then comes the piece SpaceX can’t build in a bay: the FAA launch license, which hasn’t been issued yet. There’s no official launch date, though reports point to November.
Catch both stages, then go to Florida
Flight 15 is the big one. SpaceX plans to try to catch both Super Heavy and the Starship upper stage with the tower’s chopstick arms, which Musk confirmed on the company’s earnings call (we covered that roadmap here, and what to expect from Flight 15 here). Boosters have been caught before. A ship coming back from orbit hasn’t, and it’s a different animal. It has to survive reentry first, then fall belly-first and flip upright at the last second. While Ship 42 was firing, the chopsticks were lifting and lowering Ship 43 in catch practice, Tesla Oracle reports.
Ship 43 isn’t just a practice dummy. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43 and Booster 23 are the Flight 16 pair, and they’re expected to sail to Florida for the first Starship launch from Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A. SpaceX is running both flows in parallel.
Florida is already clearing the calendar. SpaceX is pausing Falcon 9 launches from the state for at least six weeks while crews get the pads ready, Drive Tesla reports. SpaceX VP of Launch Kiko Dontchev told an audience in Cocoa on Oct. 21 that there’s “a six-week gap before the next Falcon 9,” and called it a sign that it’s “game time” for Starship, according to Florida Today. He said the Starship launch infrastructure at 39A is “effectively complete,” with doors still to go on the giant Gigabay hangar. The last Florida Falcon 9 flew on Oct. 20.
The Texas-built rockets will travel by barge, aboard SpaceX’s appropriately named “You’ll Thank Me Later,” around the Florida peninsula to Port Canaveral. And on that first Florida mission, Dontchev said the booster will try for a catch at 39A while the ship circles the Earth about six times and then lands back at Starbase. Florida to Texas, the long way around. Falcon 9 keeps flying from Vandenberg in California and from Texas in the meantime.
For a company that just told the FAA it wants 10,000 launches a year, six quiet weeks on the Space Coast is a down payment.
Sources: SpaceX on X, NASASpaceflight on X (2), Next Spaceflight, Starlust, Tesla Oracle, Drive Tesla, Florida Today.
— The EVX News team
Featured image: Ship 42 firing its six Raptor engines on the static fire stand at Massey’s, Starbase, Texas. Image: SpaceX (frame from official video).
