SpaceX has scheduled its first attempt to place the Starship vehicle into Earth orbit for September 22nd. This launch will be the fourteenth test flight of the mega-rocket and is considered a crucial step in the system's development.
The event is scheduled to take place at the Starbase facility in South Texas, United States, within a 75-minute window, with a planned start time of 9:15 AM Brasília time. Although Starship has conducted 13 test flights since its launch in 2023, all of them followed suborbital trajectories.
This time, the mission aims to place the rocket's upper stage into orbit, marking the first flight with this objective. The complete vehicle stands 124 meters tall. As stated by SpaceX itself in the mission description, reaching orbit will allow the initiation of the next development phase to make Starship fully and rapidly reusable.
Orbital Mission Details
This flight will differ from previous tests because, if everything goes according to plan, the Ship will complete six laps around the planet, maintaining an approximate altitude of 275 kilometers. After this course, the spacecraft will execute a return maneuver and is expected to land in the Pacific Ocean, located west of Chile, about ten hours after liftoff.
In contrast, during past suborbital tests, the Ship remained airborne for about 65 minutes without completing a terrestrial lap before landing in the Indian Ocean, near the coast of Western Australia.
Despite the mission's ambition, it will not include capturing the upper stage using the mechanical arms installed on the Starbase launch tower, nor will it attempt to capture the Super Heavy booster. According to TechCrunch, Elon Musk abandoned previous plans to catch the Ship during this flight, as a potential explosion would represent a very significant setback for the vehicle's development at this time.
The Super Heavy is expected to land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately seven minutes after ignition, following a pattern already used in previous flights. The company implemented changes to both the hardware and software of the booster to correct flaws noted in the previous test. In the 13th test, conducted in July, the Super Heavy faced difficulties restarting its engines after the separation of the upper stage.
Additionally, SpaceX modified the Starship's heat shield based on lessons learned from analyzing the recovered upper stage after the 13th flight. On that occasion, the Ship completed a flight considered successful up to the simulated landing in the Indian Ocean; the upper stage fell into the water without exploding, allowing it to be recovered and transported back to Texas for inspection.
Strategic Importance of the Flight
The attempt to reach orbit is fundamental to SpaceX's goals of converting Starship into a high-frequency and fully reusable launch vehicle. The company has already invested billions of dollars in the program and plans to eventually replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets with Starship, which should happen when the new vehicle can operate reliably several times a week, according to Musk.
However, to achieve this goal, Starship must not only reach orbit but also return to Earth and be reused quickly. The fourteenth flight will only serve to test the first part of this process. Other crucial phases will be reserved for subsequent flights, such as capturing the Ship with the tower and refueling the spacecraft in orbit, an essential capability for future trips to destinations like the Moon and Mars.