SpaceX’s Starship program is preparing for another crucial test flight next week, pending regulatory approval. This flight will focus on reentry and landing, while at the same time collecting comprehensive flight data to improve future missions.
Miura 1, the first Spanish rocket
A new Starship prototype is ready to take to the skies over Texas, possibly launching on the morning of Wednesday, June 5. This fourth fully integrated test flight, dubbed IFT-4, is expected to reach new milestones if all goes as planned, advancing the experimental rocket toward full operational status.
All signs point to a launch. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has completed its safety investigation into the third flight and has found no critical issues When it comes to public safety; This presumably opens the door to the issuance of the FAA’s next Starship launch license. Also, EspacioX successfully completed Her second dress rehearsal on May 23 with the two stacked prototype stages, designated Booster 11 and Ship 29.
Related article: Everything we noticed during Starship’s remarkable third test flight
he Starship’s third integrated flight test, conducted on March 14, included a successful stage separation, a full-duration burn of the second stage engines and demonstration for NASA, and a test of the Starlink dispenser door. The mission lasted one hour and 49 minutes, with the upper stage unexpectedly falling apart during reentry.
As for the Super Heavy booster, it successfully ignited 13 engines during its booster burn, but six shut down prematurely, as SpaceX explained on its flight 3. report. SpaceX had to destroy the booster during its failed landing attempt, when the Super Heavy exploded 1,515 feet (462 meters) above the Gulf of Mexico. Despite these problems, the mission showed significant progress compared to the first two integrated flight tests, both of which ended in premature explosions.
SpaceX pushed the nearly 400-foot-tall (121-meter) starship to new extremes during the third test and plans to do the same for the fourth. In a statement, SpaceX explained that the fourth flight test shifts the focus from reaching orbit to demonstrating the ability to return to both stages. The primary objectives will include executing a burn landing and gentle splash in the Gulf of Mexico with the SuperHeavy booster, as well as achieving a controlled entry of Starship.
To that end, “several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3,” the company explained. The SpaceX team will also make some changes, such as releasing the SuperHeavy’s hot stage adapter after the boost burns out to lighten the booster for the final part of the flight. By “hot stage adapter,” SpaceX refers to the section of the booster where the engines remain on while the second stage separates and begins its own combustion. The IFT-4 mission will follow a similar path as the previous test, with the upper stage targeting a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
For the fourth test, key aspects to observe include the performance of the attitude control system, which is critical for the vehicle’s orientation in space; During the third test, a filter blockage in this system caused a loss of control. an off-nominal entry, with the ship experiencing much greater heating than anticipated in both protected and unprotected areas,” SpaceX said in its report. . To address this, the company added more control redundancy and upgraded hardware to resist crashes. It will be important to see how well the upper stage performs during its brief time in space and how its heat-absorbing hexagonal tiles perform during re-entry.
“Starship’s fourth flight will aim to bring us closer to the rapidly reusable future on the horizon,” SpaceX said. Continue to rapidly develop Starship, placing flight hardware in a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible as we build a fully reusable system. transportation system designed to transport crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
Hopefully, the next flight will once again give us stunning views of Earth and a glowing starship. As always, it will be interesting to see where SpaceX succeeds and where it encounters challenges. One thing is for sure: it won’t be boring.
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