We could soon see another Starship lift off from the Gateway to Mars at Boca Chica Beach, Texas! During a press briefing on January 9 about NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program, SpaceX’s Vice President of Customer Operations and Integration Jessica Jensen announced the company’s plans for the third Starship integrated test flight in February.
Jensen shared SpaceX is working on obtaining an updated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launch license is for the scheduled test. “From a hardware readiness perspective, we are targeting to be ready in January,” Jensen stated during the briefing. In late-December SpaceX conducted some vital pre-flight preparations, including static-fire tests for both the Super Heavy booster and Starship’s Raptor engines, as previously reported by Cosmic Chronicles.
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However, the company is currently addressing FAA corrective actions stemming from the second Starship test flight on November 18, 2023. While the Super Heavy booster performed well as it lifted off the Starbase launch pad, it experienced an explosion shortly after stage separation. The Starship upper stage triggered its Flight Termination System (FTS) ending the flight with rapid unscheduled disassembly over the Gulf of Mexico. Jensen emphasized that completing these corrective actions is a prerequisite for securing the updated FAA launch license. “We’re on track for that,” she said. “We’re expecting that license to come in February. So, it’s looking like Flight 3 will occur in February.”
Jensen also shared that SpaceX looks forward demonstrating Starship’s propellant transfer capabilities as part of NASA’s Tipping Point technology program. Propellant transfer is crucial for NASA’s Artemis missions, SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship called Human Landing System (HLS), that will land Artemis III astronauts on the lunar surface in September 2026. It will be humanity’s return to the Moon after half a century!
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In order to arrive to the Moon, Starship will need to be refueled in Earth’s orbit by multiple tankers. SpaceX plans to use multiple Starships exclusively designed to be “tankers” that solely carry propellant. Refueling involves transferring cryogenic Methalox (liquid methane and liquid oxygen) propellant from a “header” tank within Starship to its “main tank” —a technique SpaceX plans to use for propellant transfer between Starship tankers in orbit.
Jensen shared that SpaceX will require “roughly ten-ish” Starship flights to fuel up the Artemis III Starship in space, meaning at least 10 Starship vehicles could be used as tankers, though that number could change depending on how their tests go. Though, the upcoming third Starship test flight will “not be the mission that does the on-orbit ship-to-ship propellant transfer,” she said.
Cyogenic refueling in orbit will be tested sometime in the future. “It sounds complex and scary, and it seems like this kind of big nebulous thing, but when you really break it down into the various pieces, we’ve actually achieved almost all of the complex parts already on our operational programs now, and it’s just gonna be piecing them together for Starship,” Jensen added.
2024 is guaranteed to be exciting in terms of Starship’s development!
Author’s note: Thanks for reading Cosmic Chronicles. Write your thoughts in the comment section below. If you have story suggestions or feedback, Direct Message me on social media 𝕏: Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo @JaneidyEve. Read the most recent stories featured below. Thank You.
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