The Starship and its Super Heavy rocket will launch from SpaceX's Starbase test site near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas, with the Super Heavy booster attempting a soft water landing splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico while the Starship vehicle circles the Earth for a water splashdown off the coast of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Those engines will burn for about 6.5 minutes, shutting down 560 seconds into the flight.Ī diagram showing how SpaceX's first Starship orbital launch will work. The Starship upper stage's six Raptor engines, meanwhile, will start up after 177 seconds, or just under three minutes into the flight, continuing the vehicle's journey eastward. Booster 7 will restart a select few of its engines to bring it back toward Texas, ultimately splashing down approximately 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after launch. When it does launch, the entire flight will take around 90 minutes, starting at Starbase, flying east over the Gulf of Mexico and between the Straits of Florida, and finishing off near Hawaii.īoth Super Heavy and Starship are designed to be fully reusable, but this will be the only flight for Booster 7 and Ship 24 both vehicles will splash down in the ocean rather than make vertical, powered landings on terra firma or a "drone ship," as the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets commonly do.īooster 7's 33 Raptor methane-liquid oxygen engines are planned to shut down 169 seconds into the flight and separate from Ship 24 three seconds later, according to SpaceX's mission description. The test launch will, however, be another step on a long road toward the launcher becoming fully operational. Starship and its test flights have been among the most captivating developments in the space sector, and the first orbital mission has been long anticipated.
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