Starship flight 9: Elon Musk's SpaceX to launch 9th flight test of spacecraft after last two sent debris back to Earth - what time in US and UK?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX's Starship spacecraft will launch again for its 9th test flight - after the other tests failed.
The Tesla billionaire wants SpaceX's Starship spacecraft to be the vehicle to send humans to Mars. But before SpaceX and NASA can send astronauts to the red planet, the company must prove Starship can fly and return safely and reliably.
Two recent Starship flight tests ended with the destruction of the spacecraft, with debris being sent back to Earth. SpaceX has scheduled the unmanned ninth test flight of Starship for Tuesday from SpaceX's Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas, with a launch window opening at 7:30 p.m. ET. This is around 00:30am UK time.
During Starship's eighth flight test in early March, several engines shut down unexpectedly about 5 1/2 minutes into the launch, resulting in SpaceX losing control of the craft. Communication with the vehicle was lost several minutes later.
After an investigation, the company said a "hardware failure" with one of the engines caused fuel to mix and ignite where it shouldn't have. And while the ship wasn't instructed to self-destruct, SpaceX says it likely did so automatically. As Starship broke up, debris fell across South Florida and parts of the Atlantic, leading to ground stops at nearby airports.
According to SpaceX, this test will mark "the first launch of a flight-proven Super Heavy booster," one that flew and returned during the seventh test flight. The company says 29 of the booster's 33 engines will also be reused from the previous test. Engineers inspected and replaced known single-use components like the heat shield but left the booster mostly intact to study real-world wear and tear.