SpaceX Starship Starship is a Fully-reusable orbital launch vehicle, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX, an American aerospace company. With more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V, it is designed to be the most powe ...

's first orbital test flight is expected to launch once SpaceX completes a successful test of all 33 Raptor 2 engines, and makes environmental adjustments to Starbase, the planned launch site, as required by the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

. SpaceX plans on using Starship Prototypes, Ship 24 and Booster 7. The Starship second stage will enter a transatmospheric Earth orbit with a positive perigee in the atmosphere. This will allow Ship 24 to reenter the atmosphere after completing around one orbit without having to restart its engines for a deorbit maneuver.

Background

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 188 ...

is planned to be a fully reusable

super heavy-lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle can lift to low Earth orbit more than by United States (NASA) classification or by Russian classification. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lif ...

, designed by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

. Made up of two stages, Starship is planned to be used for satellite deployment,

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

, and

interplanetary spaceflight Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the ...

Mission

The vehicle will launch from Starbase, at

Boca Chica, Texas Boca Chica is an area on the eastern portion of a subdelta peninsula of Cameron County, at the far south of the US State of Texas along the Gulf Coast. It is bordered by the Brownsville Ship Channel to the north, the Rio Grande and Mexico to th ...

, on the

United States Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

. The booster and spacecraft will separate about 170 seconds into the flight. The booster will partially return, and land about offshore in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. The spacecraft will execute a deceleration burn while reentering the atmosphere, and then perform a

propulsive landing Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...

in the Pacific Ocean, about northwest of

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

. More recent filings suggest that SpaceX wants to keep the possibility of catching the super heavy booster. While no date has been confirmed for the launch, SpaceX announced on Twitter on January 10, 2023 that Ship 24 had been stacked on Super Heavy Booster 7.SpaceX Twitter, Jan 10 2023
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References

SpaceX Starship 2023 in spaceflight 2023 in the United States Test spaceflights {{Spacecraft-stub

Background

Mission

See also

References