SpaceX will try satellite deployment on next Starship test
SpaceX is pressing ahead with the next Starship test and has outlined the mission’s goals, including deploying ten Starlink simulators.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already given the company the green light for the operation, and SpaceX last week outlined the changes made to the rocket as well as what it hopes to achieve.
The Starship portion of the launch system will feature new avionics and the propellant volume will be increased 25 percent. The forward flaps of the vehicle have also been moved and made smaller to reduce the system’s exposure to heating during reentry and simplify things. There are new thermal protection tiles and a backup layer to handle missing or damaged tiles.
It’s all aimed at improving the vehicle’s performance and enabling it to fly longer missions, although, as with previous test flights, the trajectory of Starship will be suborbital.
SpaceX also plans to perform a deployment during the journey, and Starship will carry a payload of ten Starlink simulators – similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites. The payload will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and splash down in the Indian Ocean.
Finally, Starship will feature updates focused on a future return to the launch site and catch. Non-structural catch fittings will be added to test thermal performance, and a significant number of tiles will be removed “to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle” alongside tests of alternative materials to protect the craft during re-entry.
As for the Super Heavy Booster, SpaceX would like to catch it on its return, although warned that the booster would be ditched if any issues were detected. SpaceX blamed launch damage to sensors on the tower chopsticks for the offshore diversion of the last test flight, but said improvements had been made to “increase reliability for booster catch.”
One of the Raptor engines used by the Super Heavy Booster would also be a unit from the fifth flight test of the system onwards.
SpaceX said: “This new year will be transformational for Starship, with the goal of bringing reuse of the entire system online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate towards being able to send humans and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.”
Or perhaps less of the Moon bit. Company boss Elon Musk described the Moon as “a distraction” in a post on X last week. His Christmas gift for NASA was to call the architecture of the agency’s Artemis program “extremely inefficient” and a “jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program.”
NASA needs Starship to land the first humans on the Moon since the days of the Apollo program. The Register contacted the agency for its reaction to Musk’s comments and will update this piece should there be a response. ®
