Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, August 7 (Xinhua)-- SpaceX today conducted an important rocket test at its interstellar base in Texas, preparing for the flight test of its next generation space transportation system starship (Starship).

The subject of this test is the first-stage prototype of Starship, the Super heavy Rocket Booster (Super Heavy Booster), numbered Booster 9. It conducted a static ignition test on the orbital launch pad of the interstellar base, briefly ignited its 33 Raptor engines (Raptor Engine) and remained stationary on the ground.

CTOnews.com noted that not all engines were running perfectly during the test, with four engines shutting down ahead of time. However, 29 of the 33 engines worked properly, and neither the Booster 9 nor the rail launcher was damaged.

"Congratulations to the Starship team on passing today's test," John Insprucker of SpaceX said live. "it brings us one step closer to the next flight test."

The starship, SpaceX's next-generation space transport system, designed to transport people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other places, has completed a complete flight test. The experiment, launched from the interstellar base on April 20, 2023, aims to send the superior prototype Ship 24 to Earth's semicircular orbit and is expected to land in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. However, the mission was unsuccessful, and several problems occurred shortly after take-off, and SpaceX sent self-destruct instructions to destroy the aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico.

The launch on April 20 also caused considerable damage to the orbital launch pad of the interstellar base and the surrounding facilities. To prevent this from happening again, SpaceX installed a water spraying system-a water-spraying steel plate-under the launch pad to reduce the huge energy generated by the 33 Raptor engines of the super-heavy rocket booster. In today's test, the new sprinkler system seemed to perform well, with a large amount of water ejecting upward into the ignited Raptor engine.

The upcoming flight test will involve Booster 9 and a superior prototype, Ship 25, with a target similar to the first launch. However, it is not clear when the launch will take place, as technical problems are not the only obstacles that SpaceX must address. For example, a coalition of environmental and indigenous groups is currently suing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which granted permits to launch starships from interstellar bases. The lawsuit alleges that the agency failed to correctly assess the damage such a launch could do to the ecosystem in southern Texas and required stricter environmental scrutiny before any more starships took off from the site.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.