The FAA last week cleared SpaceX’s Starship to fly again after concluding its review of the previous flight, which ended in an explosion, and the next test could now take off as soon as Tuesday. SpaceX is eyeing May 27 for Starship’s ninth flight test, with a launch window opening at 7:30PM ET (6:30PM local time for the Texas Starbase). This launch will mark the first time SpaceX reuses a Super Heavy booster; the booster for flight nine previously flew with Starship’s seventh flight test earlier this year. While single-use parts have been replaced, SpaceX says it’s reusing 29 of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines.
As always, viewers at home will be able to watch along by tuning into the livestream, starting about 30 minutes before Starship launches. That will be available on SpaceX’s website and in a broadcast on its X profile.
SpaceX conducted Starship’s eighth flight test back in March, but the vehicle ran into some issues a few minutes after launch. The Super Heavy booster was able to return to the launch site after separation from the upper stage and be successfully caught by the tower’s “chopstick” arms, but as for the ship itself, several Raptor engines shut off, causing it to tumble and ultimately blow itself up.
SpaceX says the issue was likely due to “a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s center Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.” It’s since made some changes to prevent that from happening again. SpaceX said in an update on May 22 that “engines on the Starship’s upper stage will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system.”
For flight nine, the Super Heavy booster won’t return to the launch site, but will instead splash down in the ocean. The Starship upper stage will attempt to deploy eight Starlink dummy satellites, and SpaceX is otherwise looking to this flight to test “several experiments focused on enabling Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site.”