![Starship is stacked and ready to fly, SpaceX says.](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/F8mIsiSbEAABDMm-800x450.jpg)
SpaceX
SpaceX announced on Friday that the corporate is targeting “mid-November” for the second flight test of the Super Heavy rocket and its Starship upper stage.
The corporate said the launch date is pending regulatory approval, which suggests that the Federal Aviation Administration and US Fish and Wildlife Service have yet to finish the environmental review process for the rocket and its launch site, which is surrounded by wetlands in South Texas.
Even so, the SpaceX announcement indicates that the corporate believes it could soon receive this regulatory approval. That is consistent with what sources have told Ars—that federal approval for the second launch of Starship is near wrapping up.
First flight, not the most effective
The primary full stack of Starship, including its Super Heavy booster, lifted off from South Texas on April 20, 2023. The rocket launched despite three of its 33 predominant Raptor engines not fully igniting at liftoff. Three more engines failed during ascent, and after a few minutes, the vehicle was ultimately destroyed by its flight termination system because it veered off target. SpaceX nonetheless obtained beneficial data.
There have been issues not only with the rocket but with the launch site as well. The corporate built its first launch tower with no flame diverter and other structures to assist mitigate the ability of the 33 predominant engines. Because of this, there was significant damage to the launch pad, and the energy of the launch ejected concrete into the encircling wetlands.
Within the months since, with its characteristic rapid pace, SpaceX has completely rebuilt the launch pad and instituted a water sound suppression system to dampen the energy of liftoff. A part of the review by the Fish and Wildlife Service is to make sure that these measures will adequately mitigate the explosive power of the rocket’s ignition and departure from the launch site.
Coming in hot
SpaceX will again goal a morning liftoff for the rocket, perhaps around 8 am local time in South Texas (14:00 UTC). Sources have indicated to Ars that the earliest possible launch date is November 13, but nothing is about in stone.
The flight timeline and profile released by the corporate on Friday for the second flight test is comparable to April’s test, calling for a 90-minute flight of the Starship upper stage, which is meant to just about complete a full orbit before splashing down into the Pacific Ocean near the island of Kauai.
One notable change is the addition of a “hot staging” ring between the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage. This method will call for the Starship’s Raptor engines to ignite before the upper stage separates from the Super Heavy first stage. That is more technically difficult than waiting for stage separation, but will eventually lead to a better payload-to-orbit capability for Starship.
“Obviously, that leads to form of blasting the booster, so you have got to guard the highest of the boost stage from getting incinerated by the upper stage engines,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said earlier this 12 months, adding that the design change would add a roughly 10 percent improvement to the Starship rocket’s payload capability.
SpaceX won’t seek to recuperate either the primary or second stage on this flight. The goal, as an alternative, is to prove the flight capabilities of the Super Heavy rocket and, if the stack reaches separation, the performance of Starship. Musk has said he thinks there may be a couple of 60 percent probability that Starship will reach its destination on this flight.
It would be quite a show, regardless.