SpaceX has fired the Starship Raptor engine and the vehicle is still standing

For the first time, a full-scale prototype of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle started its engine Tuesday night. After ignition, it appeared that the Raptor rocket’s engine burned for about 4 seconds. At the end of this test at the South Texas launch site, the vehicle was still standing. Approximately 90 minutes after the test, SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk confirmed that the test shot was good, saying, “Starship SN4 passed static fire”.

The test on Tuesday night, which took place at 8:57 pm CT local time in Texas (01:57 UTC Wednesday), was conducted eight days after a successful pressurization test of this prototype of Starship, known like SN4. Engineers will now review the data before possibly conducting another static fire test, or a small jump. Ultimately, if this vehicle survives additional tests, it can make a 150-meter jump over the Texas lowlands.

This test also took place less than a week after NASA awarded SpaceX a $ 135 million contract to develop Starship as a Lunar Lander, a vehicle to transport cargo and crew from lunar orbit to the surface and back. Although Starship is the most ambitious of the three landers NASA is considering as part of its Artemis Program, it is also the only one actively testing large-scale prototypes.

Starship SN4 STATIC FIRE!

First time a Raptor is powered up on a SpaceX spacecraft. They’ll be reviewing, so let’s hope the data shows it was a good test!

LIVE: https://t.co/aWoB55kubG

Shorten: pic.twitter.com/y2yLVxtwok

– Chris B – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) May 6, 2020

Last August, SpaceX blew up a stubby vehicle called Starhopper with a single Raptor engine. The objective of this vehicle was to test the basic pipes of the Raptor engine and see if its flight could be controlled for safe ascent and descent. Although the Starhopper made a hard landing, it survived this test, and SpaceX went on to build a full-scale prototype of the spacecraft.

Since November 2019, the company has lost three large-scale spacecraft prototypes during cryogenic and pressure tests. The most recent failure occurred on April 3. SN4 is the first vehicle to survive pressure testing to progress to additional work. You have now taken the critical step of igniting at takeoff pressures, a rigorous test given the challenges of working with high-pressure supercooled fuels, and then safely shutdown.

SN5 waiting on the wings

The vehicle on the platform in Texas is not the full Starship configuration, lacking a nose cone, fins, and other features necessary for flight. However, it includes most of the vehicle, including its liquid methane and liquid oxygen tank structure. These prop guts are the hardest parts of a rocket to control, and the static fire test is the ultimate test.

As part of its fast and iterative design process, SpaceX has already stacked SN5, the next prototype for Starship. It could very well fly higher than SN4, providing SpaceX engineers with more data as they try to understand their powerful new rocket.

Starship is the “upper stage” of a two-part, fully reusable launch system that SpaceX is developing. The company’s ultimate goal is for the “Super Heavy” rocket to propel the spacecraft into orbit, where this vehicle can carry cargo to a destination or carry dozens of passengers.