SpaceX fires up 11 engines as it prepares massive rocket for orbital test - Ars Technica

11 raptors roaring —

Nothing blew up, which is ever a win.

Eric Berger - Nov 29, 2022 10:24 p.m. UTC

Enlarge / SpaceX's Booster 7 undergoes a static occurrence trial with 11 engines connected Tuesday successful South Texas.

SpaceX

On Tuesday, SpaceX test-fired its Super Heavy rocket for astir 12 seconds, making it the longest duration firing of the monolithic booster truthful far. The test, which ignited 11 of the 33 Raptor rocket engines, came arsenic SpaceX continues moving toward an orbital motorboat effort of this Super Heavy archetypal signifier and its Starship precocious stage.

Earlier this month, SpaceX fired 14 Raptor engines connected this booster for a fewer seconds, truthful Tuesday's trial did not acceptable a caller grounds regarding the fig of engines tested. However, this "long duration" firing is the longest play of clip that truthful galore Raptor engines person been fired astatine once.

So what happens now? The way to orbit for SpaceX and its Starship motorboat strategy is unclear. Previously, SpaceX laminitis Elon Musk said the adjacent measurement was to occurrence a subset of Super Heavy's engines for astir 20 seconds to trial autogenous pressurization. This method of pressurizing substance tanks uses gases generated connected committee the rocket alternatively than a separately loaded, inert state specified arsenic helium.

Tuesday's trial whitethorn person been a somewhat shorter mentation of this autogenous pressurization test—12 seconds alternatively of 20—or it whitethorn person been thing else. The institution is taking an iterative plan and improvement attack to the Starship conveyance and its Super Heavy archetypal stage, truthful its trial plans are fluid, not dissimilar the rocket's cryogenic propellants.

In each likelihood, SpaceX inactive has a mates of cardinal tests to implicit earlier the combined Super Heavy rocket and Starship precocious signifier are launched from the company's Starbase installation successful South Texas. It is anticipated that SpaceX volition behaviour astatine slightest a short-duration trial firing of each 33 Raptor engines simultaneously to summation assurance successful the totality of the analyzable plumbing to substance and pressurize the rocket's propulsion system. Then the Starship precocious signifier volition beryllium stacked connected apical of Super Heavy, and the combined vehicles indispensable implicit a bedewed formal rehearsal.

What seems wide is that SpaceX is maturing its attack to moving with the Starship architecture, arsenic caller tests, including Tuesday's, person ended without immoderate evident failures.

After completing each of its method preparations, SpaceX indispensable besides get a motorboat licence from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is successful advancement but has yet to beryllium completed. While it remains theoretically imaginable that Starship volition marque its orbital motorboat effort successful December, determination is an expanding likelihood that the trial formation volition gaffe into the aboriginal portion of 2023.