SpaceX test-fires Super Heavy booster for 7th Starship launch (video, photos)

News
By
published

The company conducted a static fire with the booster in South Texas today (Dec. 9).

SpaceX is gearing up for the seventh test flight of its Starship megarocket, which could take place in just a month or so.

The company conducted a static-fire test with Flight 7's Super Heavy first-stage booster today (Dec. 9), briefly igniting its 33 Raptor engines at a pad at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas.

The company documented the milestone on X today, posting three photos and a short video of the test.

aerial view of a large silver rocket firing its engines on a launch mount

SpaceX conducts a static fire test with the Flight 7 Starship Super Heavy first-stage booster at its Starbase site in South Texas on Dec. 9, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX has not yet announced a launch date for Starship's seventh test flight, but the company appears to be eyeing Jan. 11; an email sent by NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration identifies that date as the target. (According to that email, NASA plans to deploy a Gulfstream V jet to observe the upcoming flight.)

Related: What's next for SpaceX's Starship after its successful 6th test flight?

Starship consists of two stainless-steel stages, both of which are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. The upper stage is a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft known as Starship, or just Ship.

When Ship is stacked atop Super Heavy, Starship stands about 400 feet (122 m) tall — bigger that any other rocket in history. Starship is also the most powerful launcher ever built, boasting nearly twice the liftoff thrust of NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket.

closeup of the base of a test stand where a rocket is being fired, with flames licking the stand's legs

A ground-level view of the Dec. 9 static fire. (Image credit: SpaceX)
RELATED STORIES:

— Starship and Super Heavy explained

— SpaceX likely to get FAA approval for 25 Starship launches in 2025

— SpaceX's Starship booster was '1 second away' from aborting epic launch-tower catch

Starship's six test flights to date occurred in April and November of 2023 and March, June, October and November of this year.

The megarocket has performed quite well, especially on its last two missions. On each occasion, both Super Heavy and Ship made it to space as planned and survived their trip back down to Earth in one piece.

aerial view of a large silver rocket firing its engines on a launch mount

Another aerial shot of the Dec. 9 static fire. (Image credit: SpaceX)

And, on Flight 5, Super Heavy returned safely to its launch tower, which caught the booster using its "chopstick" arms — the strategy SpaceX plans to use eventually for both Super Heavy and Ship, to make reflight as quick and efficient as possible.

SpaceX aimed to repeat the booster catch on Flight 6, but communication issues with the tower scuttled that try, and Super Heavy diverted to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jan.wolitzky
    "The megarocket has performed quite well"? As long as "performing well" doesn't include ever achieving orbit, or ever recovering the "designed to be fully reusable" Starship.
    Reply
  • Philly
    jan.wolitzky said:
    "The megarocket has performed quite well"? As long as "performing well" doesn't include ever achieving orbit, or ever recovering the "designed to be fully reusable" Starship.
    Orbit isn't anything that would be considered to be important at this point since they aren't placing any payloads into orbit yet. Until they have a very high degree of certainty as far as being able to control the Starship in orbit it is safer to just dump it into the Ocean. If it went out of control and crashed into a populated area that wouldn't be worth the risk at this point.

    Understand to land it back at the Cape or in Texas it will have to fly in across or over top of populated areas. Having one crash on top of Disney World just because you didn't test it fully would be a very bad thing. Best to eliminate as many doubts as possible now, with extensive real world testing.

    Besides SX knows how to put stuff into orbit at this point.
    Reply
  • jan.wolitzky
    Delivering payloads to orbit is the whole point. Let's compare Starship to the 60-year old technology everyone most likes to compare it to, the Saturn V. That craft put a payload into orbit on its first flight. No wasting time fooling around with partially successful suborbital demos. Starship/SuperHeavy just had it's sixth flight. On Saturn V's sixth flight, it sent Apollo 11 to the moon.

    For Starship HLS to land astronauts on the moon (now slated for 2027, but there's no way that will happen), SpaceX will need to orbit a Starship tanker, then orbit a series of Starships (a number in the "high teens", per NASA) to fuel the tanker, then orbit Starship HLS (Human Landing System) to receive fuel from the tanker, then fire Starship HLS into a translunar trajectory, then drop it into lunar orbit, where it will dock with either Artemis 3 or with the Lunar Gateway, from which astronauts will transfer, then deorbit and descend to the surface, then lift off, achieve lunar orbit, and dock again to deliver astronauts for the return trip. (After which, the fuel-depleted Starship HLS will be abandoned, not reused.) That's an awful lot of capabilities that have yet to be demonstrated!
    Reply
  • skynr13
    jan.wolitzky said:
    "The megarocket has performed quite well"? As long as "performing well" doesn't include ever achieving orbit, or ever recovering the "designed to be fully reusable" Starship.
    Or having the legs it will needs to land on the Moon. Chopstik catches are fine, but it will still need legs to land on other planets or moons. It would be especially fine now, as it would facilitate it's landing even on Earth during testing and check one more test off the books before regular use and end these pollutive sea landings.
    Reply
  • skynr13
    jan.wolitzky said:
    Delivering payloads to orbit is the whole point. Let's compare Starship to the 60-year old technology everyone most likes to compare it to, the Saturn V. That craft put a payload into orbit on its first flight. No wasting time fooling around with partially successful suborbital demos. Starship/SuperHeavy just had it's sixth flight. On Saturn V's sixth flight, it sent Apollo 11 to the moon.

    For Starship HLS to land astronauts on the moon (now slated for 2027, but there's no way that will happen), SpaceX will need to orbit a Starship tanker, then orbit a series of Starships (a number in the "high teens", per NASA) to fuel the tanker, then orbit Starship HLS (Human Landing System) to receive fuel from the tanker, then fire Starship HLS into a translunar trajectory, then drop it into lunar orbit, where it will dock with either Artemis 3 or with the Lunar Gateway, from which astronauts will transfer, then deorbit and descend to the surface, then lift off, achieve lunar orbit, and dock again to deliver astronauts for the return trip. (After which, the fuel-depleted Starship HLS will be abandoned, not reused.) That's an awful lot of capabilities that have yet to be demonstrated!
    It still cannot land on the Moon without landing legs. So why isn't that being introduced now for testing?
    Reply
  • Classical Motion
    Saturn was built under military threat. Musk is building under bureaucratic threat.

    And I love his demonstrations. I have no doubt he can build gas stations in earth and moon orbit.

    Service with a smile.
    Reply
  • DrRaviSharma
    Some of these suggestions probably can help SpaceX team as they donot have and think that they do not need experience of previous moon missions.

    Product improvement is desired esecially with taxpayer money based projects.

    Even if Starship is ready is Artemis Next human mission close?

    Also we donot need delays due to extraneous complexities such as gateways that can evolve later.

    Yes randezvous with Orion, Landing and ascent to moon if Starship is to be used should be prioity other long term survival on moon should be extended parts of core revisit mission.


    I was for 5 years part of NASA HQ Apollo Program.



    Thanks
    Reply
  • jan.wolitzky
    NASA is losing confidence in SpaceX's ability to deliver on their cockamamie multi-step Starship HLS plan. Last Spring, they started talking about maybe having Artemis 3 not land astronauts on the moon, but just dock with Starship in low Earth orbit. (For comparison, the similar Apollo 9 mission followed the more ambitious Apollo 8 by less than 3 months.) https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/nasa-may-alter-artemis-iii-to-have-starship-and-orion-dock-in-low-earth-orbit/
    Reply