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ceo elon musk says that it's highly likely spacex will be ready to attempt its first
orbital starship launch in november 2022 and possibly as early as late october
but many major hurdles remain adding to a welcome burst of insight into spacex's
fully reusable starship rocket program musk took to twitter on september 21st to provide a bit
more specific insight into the company's next steps towards a crucial orbital launch debut
on september 19th the ceo revealed that spacex would roll the starship booster
b7 currently assigned to that debut back to the factory for mysterious robustness upgrades
an unexpected move right after a seemingly successful and record-breaking static fire test
two days later musk indicated that those upgrades might involve fortifying super
heavy booster 7's thrust section to ensure it can survive raptor engine failures with 33 raptor v2
engines powering it and plenty of evidence that those raptors are far from perfect reliability
the concern is understandable even if the response is a bit different than spacex's norm
prior to the start of preparations for starship's orbital launch debut spacex sped through starship
development like it wanted to destroy as many rockets as possible which to some extent it did
rather than spend 6 to 12 months fiddling with the same few prototypes without a single launch
attempt spacex turned out starships and test articles and aggressively tested them
a few times spacex pushed a little too hard and made avoidable mistakes but most of the
failures produced large amounts of data that were then used to improve future vehicles
the holy grail of that project was high-altitude starship flight testing which saw spacex finish
test and launches a new starship five times in six months and culminating in
the first fully successful high altitude starship launch and landing in may 2021
in comparison spacex's orbital flight test preparations have been almost unrecognizable
while a good amount of progress has been made in the 16 months since sn15's successful launch
and landing it's clear that spacex has decided against taking significant risks
after spending more than six months slowly finishing and testing super heavy booster
4 and starship 20 the first orbital class pair spacex never even attempted a single booster for
static fire and unceremoniously retired both prototypes without attempting to fly either
without info from musk or spacex we may never know why spacex stood down before an s20 or
why the company appears to have revised its development approach to be a bit more
conservative after clearly demonstrating the efficacy of moving fast and taking big risks
it's possible that winning a three billion dollar contract that places starship front and center
in nasa's attempt to return astronauts to the moon has encouraged a more careful approach
spacex won that contract in april 2021 in its more cautious third phase starship development is still
extraordinarily hardware rich moving quickly and uncovering many problems on the ground
in lieu of learning from flight tests but that doesn't change the fact that the third phase
of starship development is proceeding more carefully than the first and second phases
nonetheless spacex appears to finally be getting closer to starship's first orbital launch
according to musk the company could be ready for the first launch attempt as early as late october
but a november attempt is highly likely he believes that spacex will have two pairs of
orbital class starships and super heavy boosters b7 and s24 b8 and s25 ready for
orbital flight by then potentially enabling a rapid return to flight after the first attempt
musk is also excited about super heavy booster 9 which has many design
changes in a thrust section that will fully isolate all 33 raptors from each other
crucial for preventing the failure of one engine from damaging others
meanwhile as musk forecast did super heavy booster 8 rolled to the launch pad on september 19th and
will likely be proof tested in the near future while booster 7 is upgraded back at the factory
encouraging as that may be history has shown that reality particularly when it involves
starship's orbital launch debut can be quite a bit different than the pictures elon musk paints
in september 2021 for example musk predicted that spacex would conduct the first
super heavy static fire at starbase orbital launch pad later that month in reality that
crucial test occurred 11 months later august 9th 2022 and used an entirely different booster
this is to say that significant progress has been made in the last few months
but spacex has a huge amount of work left almost all of which lies in uncharted terrain starship 24
which completed its first six-engine static fire earlier this month is currently undergoing strange
modifications that seem to imply that the upper stage is not living up to spacex's expectations
it's unclear if additional testing will be required super heavy b7 is headed back to the
factory for additional work after a successful 7 raptor static fire once it returns to the pad
the sequencing isn't clear but spacex will need to complete the first full super heavy
wet dress rehearsal fully loading the booster with thousands of tons of flammable propellant
and the first full 33 raptor static fire it remains to be seen if spacex will continue its
conservative approach or jump straight from 7 to 33 engine testing it's also unclear where ship 24
fits into that picture spacex will eventually need to or should conduct a full wet dress rehearsal of
the fully stacked starship and may even want to attempt a 33 engine static fire with that fully
fueled two-stage vehicle to truly test the rocket under the same conditions it will launch under
spacex's last year of activity suggests that the company will choose caution and conduct wet dress
rehearsals and 33 engine static fires before and after stacking potentially doubling the amount of
testing required one or several more tests will also be required if spacex decides to gradually
build up to 33 engines which is the approach that all booster 7 activity to date suggests spacex
will take either way it will be a major challenge for spacex to have a fully stacked starship
ready to launch by the end of november if any significant problems arise during any of the
several unprecedented tests described above musk's predicted schedule will likely become impossible
as a wildcard the federal aviation administration faa has yet to issue spacexl license or
experimental permit for orbital starship launches either of which is contingent upon dozens of
mitigations this isn't to say that it's impossible for an orbital starship launch attempt to occur in
november but factoring in the many issues booster 7 and ship 24 have experienced during much simpler
tests it's becoming increasingly implausible that spacex will be ready to launch the pair before the
end of 2022 anyway stay tuned a huge thanks to brilliant today for sponsoring this video
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