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In the highly competitive aerospace industry, numerous companies are sending rockets and spacecraft into space. Among them, SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, plays a significant role with its impressive space vehicle called Starship. Starship has already completed three successful test flights, both achievements and setbacks. SpaceX is now preparing for the fourth test flight of the Starship megarocket scheduled for June 5th.
The company still needs to secure regulatory approval, however. We may less than two weeks away from Starship next test flight.
Key points:
• The fourth flight test aims to demonstrate the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy.
• SpaceX has made multiple modifications to Starship following Flight 3, including implementing additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to enhance propellant filtration capabilities.
• The company has also added more roll control thrusters on future Starships to improve attitude control redundancy and upgraded hardware for enhanced blockage resilience.
For a detailed explanation of this, continue further reading.
Space X announced (May 24) that it's targeting june 5 for the fourth-ever liftoff of Starship, the giant vehicle it's developing to get and cargo to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
That is written in pencil rather than pen. SpaceX still needs to secure regulatory approval — specifically, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's acceptance of a Starship launch license modification. If the paperwork comes through and no technical issues arise, Starship will launch on June 5 from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas.
The launch window opens as early as 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT; 7 a.m. local Texas time).
SpaceX will stream the launch live via X, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff, as mentioned in a newly posted description of the upcoming flight. The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship has flown three times to date, in April 2023, November 2023, and March 14 of this year.
On each successive flight, the megarocket has performed better. Starship's two stages — known as Super Heavy and Starship, or just Ship — failed to separate on the debut mission, which ended after just four minutes. Stage separation occurred successfully on Flight 2, which lasted about eight minutes.
Flight 3 continued for nearly 50 minutes and saw Ship reach orbital velocity; it ended when Ship broke apart upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere. (Super Heavy broke apart as well, near the end of its descent toward a planned splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.) SpaceX aims to continue improving on Flight 4. "The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,"
SpaceX wrote in the mission description. "The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, as well as achieving a controlled entry of Starship." SpaceX has made multiple modifications to Starship following Flight 3, the company stated in a post-mortem report about the March mission posted (May 24).
For example, SpaceX determined that some of Super Heavy's Raptor engines shut down early during its "boostback" burn on Flight 3 and failed to relight as planned during its landing burn shortly thereafter. Engineers traced this issue to a "filter blockage" affecting liquid oxygen flow to the engines. (Raptors burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane.) "
SpaceX implemented hardware changes ahead of Flight 3 to mitigate this issue," the company mentioned in today's report. "Super Heavy boosters for Flight 4 and beyond will receive additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to further enhance propellant filtration capabilities." Ship succumbed to tremendous frictional heating forces during reentry on Flight 3 after losing attitude control and beginning to roll.
SpaceX has learned from this issue and taken steps to reduce the likelihood of it happening again. The most probable root cause of the unplanned roll was determined to be clogging of the valves responsible for roll control, SpaceX reported today.
SpaceX has added more roll control thrusters on future Starships to improve attitude control redundancy and upgraded hardware for enhanced blockage resilience.
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