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SpaceX is aiming to launch its first orbital Starship mission from Boca Chica/Starbase as soon as Sept. 22, with a 75-minute launch window opening at 7:15 a.m.
The company says the upcoming launch of Flight 14 will be the first time Starship has orbited around Earth.
“Flight tests until this point have intentionally flown passively safe suborbital trajectories to maximize public safety while allowing for maximum learning,” according to SpaceX. “By going to orbit, the next phase of developing Starship to be fully and rapidly reusable can begin.”
Instead of splashing down in the Indian Ocean near Australia as with several previous test flights, SpaceX says it plans to put Starship S41, the vehicle to be used for Flight 14, into the South Pacific west of Chile. This flight will also be the first during which 26 actual Starlink satellites — versus mock-ups as with previous missions — will be deployed, the company says.
The mission calls for S41 to complete six orbits around Earth at an altitude of roughly 170 miles during a nearly 10-hour flight, according to SpaceX.
Besides satellite deployment, chief objectives for the first orbital Starship include “orbital insertion” — a maneuver to alter the vehicle’s trajectory to enter orbit, a de-orbit burn using a single engine while in space, and a controlled reentry, descent and splashdown, the company says.
“Starship will only execute a burn to enter orbit after the flight control team has ensured there is sufficient redundancy on hardware critical to doing the subsequent de-orbit burn at the end of the mission,” according to SpaceX.
Flight will use Super Heavy booster B21 to launch Starship. The primary goals for the booster will be a successful launch, ascent, stage separation from Starship, boost-back burn, and landing burn to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX said a number of hardware and software modifications have been made to address booster issues with Flight 13.
“After stage separation and flip on Flight 13, the Super Heavy booster was able to use all 33 engines on its boost-back burn for the first time.,” SpaceX says. “In the terminal phase of the burn, the three center engines showed signs of ice clogging, which triggered an early end to the maneuver.
“The booster went on to attempt a landing burn, with 8 of the 13 planned engines reigniting before the booster made a hard splashdown in the Gulf. The Super Heavy on this upcoming flight has hardware modifications to improve filtering to the engines and software changes to enhance relight reliability.”
A live webcast of the flight will start roughly 30 minutes before liftoff and can be viewed from SpaceX’s website. Coverage will continue through splashdown, according to the company, which said it’s always possible the pending launch could be pushed back to a later date.