SpaceX is gearing up for Starship's 13th test flight later this week - Ars Technica
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The next test flight of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster could take off as soon as Thursday, and much of the hour-long mission will look a lot like the last Starship flight in May.
But there are a few key differences for this launch, set to occur during a launch window that opens at 5:45 pm CDT (22:45 UTC) on Thursday. The most notable change is the inclusion of real, functioning Starlink satellites inside Starship’s cargo bay. SpaceX previously tested the ship’s payload deployment mechanism using simulators mimicking the mass and dimensions of the company’s next-generation Starlink Version 3 broadband satellites.
This time—Starship’s 13th full-scale test flight and the second to use SpaceX’s newest version of Starship—technicians have installed 20 Starlink V3 satellites into the ship’s deployer, a system of pulleys and cables designed to eject a stack of satellites one at a time through an opening on the side of the spacecraft. The satellites will not be part of SpaceX’s operational network, but engineers will attempt to briefly establish laser communication links between the Starlink V3s and other spacecraft flying in low-Earth orbit. If successful, these links will validate Starlink V3’s interoperability with SpaceX’s previous generation of Starlink satellites.
As with all of SpaceX’s previous Starship test flights, the more than 400-foot-tall rocket will fly on a long suborbital trajectory arcing halfway around the world from the launch site at Starbase, Texas, to a predetermined location in the Indian Ocean. The flight of Starship and the 20 Starlink satellites will last a little more than an hour before they fall back into the atmosphere. The ship will target a controlled splashdown northwest of Australia, while the Starlink satellites will burn up during reentry.
A new ingredient
The flight plan for this week’s mission has just enough time in space for the Starlink satellites to extend their solar arrays and antennas. The satellites will also attempt to connect with ground stations in South Africa as they soar more than 100 miles overhead.
What’s more, some of the Starlink V3s will host cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit the imagery down to engineers on the ground, according to SpaceX. The imagery will allow ground teams to “continue testing methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions,” SpaceX said in a post on its website.
Two of the Starlink mockups carried cameras for external imaging on the last Starship mission, returning views of the ship set against the ghostly darkness of space. This time, SpaceX has affixed cameras to six of the Starlink satellites. The imaging opportunity on this week’s mission will occur during nighttime, just as it did on the last flight.
The presence of Starlink V3s on the next Starship test flight is a harbinger for what’s to come. Fully loaded Starships will be capable of launching up to 60 Starlink V3s on a single flight, unlocking a dramatic expansion of the network’s capacity. Each Falcon 9 launch with V2 satellites adds about 2.6 Tbps to the constellation. Pairing Starship with a full stack of V3 satellites will add 60 Tbps to the network.
Starship is designed to carry other kinds of satellites, too, including customer payloads and massive platforms for SpaceX’s proposed orbital data center network. The rocket is also designed for flights to the Moon and Mars. Starship is a core part of NASA’s Artemis program to land astronauts at the Moon’s south pole. But the first real operational missions for Starship will begin fielding SpaceX’s third-generation Starlink constellation, perhaps later this year if all goes according to plan.
A Starlink satellite simulator is prepared for loading into SpaceX’s Starship rocket before the 12th test flight in May. The next flight will include functioning Starlink V3 satellites.
Credit:<br>SpaceX
A Starlink satellite simulator is prepared for loading into SpaceX’s Starship rocket before the 12th test flight in May. The next flight will include functioning Starlink V3 satellites.
Credit:
SpaceX
Lessons learned
SpaceX must send Starship into low-Earth orbit before achieving any of these lofty objectives. A near-perfect test flight Thursday would put the company on the cusp of an orbital launch. That, in turn, would allow Starship to move toward several important milestones, such as bona fide satellite launches,...