The static ignition test of the starship prototype SN25 was carried out before the SpaceX second orbital flight test.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens for the delivery of clues from rain and snow and Daniel Wu in South China! On Monday night, local time, SpaceX conducted a static ignition test of its starship prototype SN25.

At 08:27 EDT, technicians ignited six Raptor engines carried by the SN25 at a starship base in southern Texas, which lasted about five seconds.

It is reported that SN25 will be an important part of SpaceX's second orbital flight test of the starship system.

Static ignition is a routine test before launch of a spacecraft. In this test, the engine carried by the spacecraft is briefly ignited, while the spacecraft is still fixed on the ground. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said it may only be about six weeks before the second starship system is tested in orbit.

SpaceX plans to use the super heavy booster prototype Booster 9 to send SN25 high into the air from the starship base. SN25's test goal is to orbit part of the Earth and eventually splash down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

This is also the goal of the first orbital flight test of the SpaceX starship system on April 20 this year. In the first flight test, the starship system flew up to an altitude of about 39 kilometers above the ground.

But the starship system encountered several problems that day, and the upper starship failed to separate from the super-heavy booster as planned. So SpaceX issued a self-destruct order a few minutes after the starship system was launched.

SpaceX is well prepared for static ignition testing this week. Last Thursday, SpaceX technicians conducted a turbine rotation test on the SN25 in imitation of a real flight, checking important systems in advance for the engine's static ignition test.

The entire starship system is 394 feet (120 meters) high, making it the most powerful rocket ever built. The first-stage super booster, which carries 33 Raptor engines, can generate about 1670 million pounds of thrust when launched, almost twice the total thrust of the space launch system (SLS) giant rocket developed by NASA.

Starships are also designed to be fully and rapidly reused spacecraft, and Musk believes that this breakthrough will open the final confinement for the exploration and development of deep space.

Musk's goal is to explore deep space. NASA has chosen a starship as the first manned lander for the Artemis moon landing program, and Musk envisioned that humans could use starships to settle on Mars for the first time.