Science
Launch of Musk’s monster rocket could be in May
SpaceX is set to launch the third version
of its Starship rocket after completing a Wet Dress Rehearsal
(WDR) – a full fueling test – yesterday.
It was second time lucky for Elon Musk’s rocketeers,
after a first attempt over the weekend was aborted. The issue cropped up before
propellant was loaded.
However, on Monday, the company tried again and
confirmed that during the
countdown (designed to check out as many activities as possible short of launching
the behemoth) 5,000 metric tons (more than 11 million pounds) of propellant were
loaded into the vehicles stacked on the company’s new Pad 2 at its Starbase
facility in Texas.
NASA’s Artemis II also suffered from WDR
problems, although the US space agency was forced to roll the rocket stack back
to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. Whatever issue bedeviled SpaceX’s
latest Starship and its Super Heavy Booster was dealt with at the pad, and the
test was successfully repeated.
A launch of the latest rocket revision
could therefore occur in the coming days or weeks, pending the results of the
WDR and approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Although SpaceX
has yet to confirm a target date, it is likely sometime toward the end of May.
SpaceX had already performed a full-duration
and full-thrust static fire of the 33 engines of the Super Heavy Booster earlier in May, and showed off imagery of the complete Starship V3 stack on May 9.
Time is running out for the company. NASA
has stated that it aims to launch the Artemis III mission at the end of 2027,
intended to test hardware for a planned lunar landing the following year.
SpaceX is contracted to produce a lunar lander for the US space agency, and
getting the third version of Starship into space is an essential part of those
plans.
This next mission, Flight 12, will not be troubling
orbit as SpaceX tests the changes made to the new version of the launcher. Future
launches must, however, reach orbit if the company is to stand a chance of
meeting NASA’s requirement for a rendezvous demonstration and check-out as part
of Artemis III. ®
