SpaceX tested the Starship rocket for the first time

After quickly assembling Ship 20 and Booster 4 days ago, SpaceX appears to have begun testing a fully assembled Starship rocket for the first time ever.

Although the test that SpaceX Starship underwent was nothing short of ambitious, and despite the fact that it no longer looks like Ship 20 and Booster 4 will ever fly, the first prototype test of a new fully integrated rocket is still extremely large and it is considered a significant achievement – ​​especially for the largest rocket ever built.

At about 119 meters long, Starship is undoubtedly the largest and most voluminous rocket ever built. With its 29 Raptor V1 engines, the fully assembled Ship 20 and Booster 4 (B4) cluster would likely weigh about 4000–5000 tons (9–11 M lb) and be capable of producing about 5400 tons (11.9 M lbf) liftoff thrust – significantly heavier and more powerful than the Saturn V or N1, the largest rockets ever successfully and unsuccessfully launched.

However, for the first fully integrated test, SpaceX appears to have put the Starship through a rather limited cryogenic test – a test where the flammable propellant is replaced with a similar cold (cryogenic) fluid that is similar enough to subjected to a similar thermal and mechanical racket.

For the combined debut of Ship 20 and Booster 4, the Super Heavy was filled perhaps 10-20 percent and the Starship about 25-50 percent with liquid nitrogen (LN2) or a combination of LN2 and liquid oxygen (LOx). It is hard to say, but it is unlikely that any methane fuel (LCH4) was involved.

Most importantly, Ship 20 successfully completed several static fire tests, each of which also functioned as a wet coating test with LCH4/LOx propellants. Booster 4 had also passed several cryogenic proof tests. In this sense, it is unlikely that SpaceX has a large uncertainty about whether each prototype would be able to perform another test.

Beyond the basic mechanical demonstration that the Super Heavy Booster 4 is strong enough to support a partially loaded Starship, which was probably not in doubt, it is likely that the primary purpose of this first full cryoproof was to ensure that all the systems needed to fuel the Starship atop the Super Heavy were working as expected. This is no small feat considering that Starship is both the tallest rocket and the largest upper stage ever assembled. To fully fuel a Starship for an orbital launch, about 1200 tons of propellant (or LN2 for a cryoresistor) – equivalent to the weight of more than two full Falcon 9 rockets – must be pumped about 85 meters up the Starbase's integration tower.

This could simply involve further filling the rocket and increasing its tank pressures, or it could culminate in a partial wet-coating test with methane and oxygen propellants instead of liquid nitrogen. There is an even smaller chance that SpaceX could attempt to statically fire the Super Heavy B4 for the first time, although sources such as NASASpaceflight are no longer certain that Booster 4 will statically discharge before retirement.

Furthermore, it would be uncharacteristically risky behavior for SpaceX to conduct the first static fire of a new prototype with an already proven Starship sitting on top of it. An anomaly as small as an uncontrolled fire – not uncommon for Starships – could easily risk the catastrophic destruction of both stages, which itself would risk significantly damaging the orbital launch site, which could easily take months to complete. to be repaired.

However, there is still a chance. SpaceX has options for additional testing on March 17, 18, 21 and 22. /Telegraph/