The footage that was shared through SpaceX’s official Twitter handle was of Ship 24, the latest prototype for the Martian dream Starship being prepared for its orbital launch soon. There have been static fire tests of Ship 24 before for 2 and full-6 Raptor engines, but a single engine test was conducted successfully where it was fired for 7 seconds. The ‘static fire’ tests are often short in length and are done to gather data on engine performance and to check any shortcomings. Ship 24 isn’t the only one, the latest Booster prototype, Booster 7 has also performed static fire tests for 1,3,7,11, and 14-engine groups, to the preparation of full 33-engine static fire.
SpaceX Starship in brief
For commoners, Super Heavy Booster ‘Booster 7’ and Starship Crafts ‘Ship 24’ combined will be the common visualization of one complete Starship. The final countdown before we could touchdown at Mars and come back is not so far away with the progress SpaceX is making with Starship. The latest top-down video by SpaceX of even a single engine impress and feels ambitious. With optimistic predictions by founder Elon Musk and his ambitious projects such as DearMoon (proposed to be executed in 2023), one safe space flight will pave the way for the future. As of December 2022, SpaceX has not received its orbital launch license from Federal Aviation Administration. But Nasa’s coalition with SpaceX Starship for Artemis III puts trust into the developments and up comings for cheaper and more efficient space exploration.
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