SpaceX's Starship rocket successfully completes its first "flight-like" fueling test.
The next-generation SpaceX rocket has taken a big step toward its first attempt after sailing through a major wet dress rehearsal test. It is the largest rocket ever assembled, measuring around 120 meters tall and 9 meters wide. It is designed to launch more than 100 metric tons in a fully-reusable configuration.
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Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant pic.twitter.com/btprGNGZ1G
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 24, 2023
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At liftoff, the 33 Raptor engines will produce up to 7590 tons of thrust, making it more powerful than any rocket in history by a large margin. The complex test associated with that milestone appeared to have been completed without any major issues. The program has only been managed to prioritize speed and expect failures since the beginning. Even if it meant that failures were guaranteed, the company almost always preferred to build, test, and learn from minimum-viable-product prototypes as quickly as possible.
Starship is FULLY fueled for the first time!
📷 https://t.co/CBWHLyfMUT pic.twitter.com/L9fTcIdAew
— Cosmic Perspective (@considercosmos) January 23, 2023
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Starship prototypes rarely completed ground or flight tests on the first try, as they were learning how to test and operate those vehicles. Between August 2020 and May 2021, there were seven suborbital Starship tests, two short hops of identical prototypes and five launch and landing attempts of advanced prototypes. After four failed attempts, a full-scale Starship successfully launched to 12.5 kilometers (41,000 ft), shut off its engines, fell back to Earth, and landed in one piece. The approach to risk management and systems engineering of the Starship program was changed in the second half of the 20th century.
As a result of being extremely cautious over the last several months, the first fully-assembled wet dress rehearsal test appears to indicate that that caution has paid off. Dozens of separate proof tests and static fires have been completed by both stages of the rocket. They were able to make it through several more limited tests, having cautiously characterized each prototype about as well as it possibly could. The spaceships were loaded with up to 4860 tons of liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellant in 90 minutes.
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First ever Starship full stack wet dress rehearsal in the books. Fully loaded with over 10 million pounds of propellent along with umpteen thousand tons of ship and booster. Big things are happening at STARBASE.#Starbase #Starship #SpaceX
📸 Me for WAI Media @FelixSchlang pic.twitter.com/lVatHb5WhV
— Kevin Randolph (@CosmicalChief) January 24, 2023
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The combined weight of the rocket and propellant likely exceeded 5000 tons, making it the heaviest rocket in history. The next heaviest rockets ever built,Saturn V and N-1, weighed around 2800 tons and were fully loaded when they were built. At no point during the wet dress rehearsal did SpaceX appear to enter any kind of hold or abort, indicating that they were practicing the moments before the rocket would otherwise ignite its engines and take flight. Shortly after Starship was topped off, there was only a small amount of mildly concerning behavior visible during the multi-hour test.
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Booster 7 opened one of its methane tank gas vents to relieve pressure and instead appeared to vent liquid methane, which created a cloud thousands of feet long. The liquid vent was an intentional response to the Super Heavy being slightly overfilled. The cloud of methane did not find an ignition source, and the test went on as planned. There is over 10 million pounds of propellent and thousands of tons of ship and booster.
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There are a lot of big things happening at STARBASE. Booster 7 could become the most powerful rocket ever tested if it completes one or several more static fires. If Booster 7 passes its tests, spaceship 24 will be removed and the rocket reassembled. After many false positives, the successful completion of a wet dress rehearsal on the first try has confirmed that the rocket's orbital launch.