After the changes, Starship will turn on the engines even before the separation from Super Heavy
The Starship first stage prototype, known as Super Heavy Booster 9, passed its second “static fire” test yesterday, August 25th. The creators of the rocket briefly launched the Raptor engines, while the Super Heavy was fixed on the launch pad.
The engines ran for about six seconds as planned, SpaceX officials said during a webcast of the test. This was the second such test for the Booster 9, with all 33 engines running yesterday and 29 out of 33 engines fired on August 6. The two static fires are part of preparations for the second ever test flight. Super Heavy Booster 9 will lift a prototype called Ship 25 into orbit.
The first test launch of Starship, which took place on April 20 of this year, failed and ended in an explosion , although the rocket rose quite high, but the stages could not separate.
According to company founder and CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX has made over 1,000 design changes to the Starship since this debut flight.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2023
For example, the company has moved to a “hot stage” strategy, meaning that the Starship upper stage will now fire six Raptor engines before completely separating from the Super Heavy booster. This change required the addition of a ventilation system and heat shield to the top of Booster 9, which SpaceX did between the first and second static tests.
