In Texas everything is ready for the ninth launch of Starship. A mission that promises to be memorable: if everything worked the next objectives will be Moon and Mars.
Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, is ready for the ninth trial flight. The launch window from the platform to Starbase, in Texas, will open at 1:30 on Wednesday 28 May (Italian time).
Flight with Booster. Spacex focuses everything on this test, to demonstrate the reliability of the rocket, after two failed attempts. But there is another element that makes this mission historical: for the first time a super heavy booster will be reused. This is the B14 Booster, already the protagonist of the flight Starship Flight 7 last January. He will fly with 29 of his 33 original raptor engines, marking an important step forward in the reuse strategy of the launchers who made Falcon 9 famous. In the case of Falcon 9, the first orbital launch dates back to 2010, but it took almost seven years before Spacex could reuse a booster (in 2017).
Goals. With Starship, progress has been faster: from the first integrated flight in April 2023, we have already reached the reuse of a main component in just over a year and a half. However It has not been said what the precise purposes of this flight arealthough most likely he will try to put the facsimiles of the earthenware of Satellites similar to StarlinkThe Booster will return to the launching pad And the shuttle will try a landing in the sea in a vertical way in the Pacific Ocean.
There is the moon around the corner. There is great pressure on Spacex to finally be able to complete a successful flight with the second stage of Block 2. The reason? NASA follows every step carefully: The Artemis 3 mission, which will bring astronauts to the moon, depends on the next version of this vehiclethe block 3. Due to delays in development, lLunar landing is already slipped from the end of 2026 to at least half 2027.
Spacex had promised a demonstration of propellant transfer between two Starship vehicles in Earth orbit between the beginning and mid -2025, but neither the company nor the NASA have provided recent updates. This test will be fundamental before the Artemis 3 mission, because each lunar landing will require a complete refueling in orbit, which could involve up to 10 launches for a single mission.
Besides, there is Mars. Despite the priorities imposed by the Artemis program, Elon Musk continues to look beyond, to Mars. The founder of Spacex said he wanted to launch A unparalleled mission to the red planet by the end of 2026.
An ambitious goal, which will depend on the ability to supply in orbit successfully.
In the meantime, at 19:00 Italian on Monday 27 May, Musk will hold a highly anticipated company intervention entitled “The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary”broadcast live on the Spacex account X. According to the advances, the speech will present the long -term strategy of the company for the colonization of Mars. It is not clear whether Musk will also face progress towards the objectives established with NASA. This event is part of an interesting political context: the United States Senate is close to the vote for the appointment of Jared Isaacman as the next NASA administrator. The vote could arrive already in the next few days, at the resumption of the classroom activities.
