SpaceX starship super heavy booster 7 engines ignited at the same time

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen AVIDINTEL for the clue delivery! On Monday, local time, SpaceX started seven Raptor engines simultaneously for the first time during a static ignition test of the starship system prototype's No. 7 super-heavy booster, the largest number of rocket engines in the company.

The starship is a 50-meter-high reusable spacecraft that will be put into orbit by a 70-meter-long super-heavy booster with 33 Raptor engines. SpaceX has recently been testing the No. 7 booster to prepare for the first orbital flight of the planned starship system.

After successfully completing static ignition tests on Monday, Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, said on social media Twitter that combustion chamber pressure on all seven Raptor engines "looks normal".

In a subsequent tweet, Musk said, "Booster 7 is now returning to the high cabin for system robustness upgrade, and Booster 8 will be moved to the launch pad to continue testing." He added that the company's next large-scale test of the starship system prototype will be "full stack pre-launch state training, and then start 33 engines at the same time in a few weeks." What Musk calls the "full stack" includes starships at the top of super-heavy booster, which together make up the world's tallest rocket, with a total height of 120 meters.

SpaceX recently completed twice as many static ignition tests as rocket engines did on August 31. During that static ignition test of the super heavy booster, SpaceX started three Raptor engines, the first time the company has conducted static ignition tests on multiple engines carried on the super heavy booster. Earlier, SpaceX started two of the starship's six Raptor engines during a static ignition test on August 9.

SpaceX has not released an expected date for full stack testing of the starship system. But the company says it aims to test the prototype for the first time in the coming months.