Orbital tests of the next-generation spacecraft, which the private company SpaceX is building in Texas, may take place in May. As Elon Musk wrote on Twitter, The Raptor engines will be ready in April, it will take another month to install and debug them, after which the Super Heavy launch vehicle will be able to fly into space for the first time.
“Next month we will have 39 suitable Raptor engines, then another month for integration, so there is hope to conduct a test flight in May,” Musk wrote in response to a question from CNBC.
Starship is a nearly 120-meter reusable spacecraft that SpaceX has been developing for several years and is going to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth, to orbit, the Moon and Mars. In February, Elon Musk held a presentation at the Starbase test site in Texas, where he spoke about the test schedule and difficulties, and also promised to reduce the cost of launching a Heavy rocket with a load capacity of 100 tons to $10 million, that is, up to $10 per kilograms.
The company completed a cycle of high-altitude flight tests, which used prototypes of the ship, but the next important stage was forced to postpone. The orbital flight was supposed to take place last year, but was postponed for several months. One of the reasons is the lack of final permission to launch Super Heavy rockets from the current spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration promised to respond at the end of March.
Another difficulty that the company had to overcome in order to start orbital tests is of a production nature, and is associated with the Raptor closed – type liquid-propellant engines. This became known in the fall of 2021 from a letter that Musk sent to SpaceX employees. In it, he asks to show loyalty to the company and perform a labor feat, otherwise SpaceX “faces a real danger of bankruptcy.”
The project of a two-stage Super Heavy spacecraft, reminiscent of Starship, is also available in China. However, while Starship and Super Heavy are being developed with a load capacity of 100 tons, the Chinese system will take on board 5 times less – about 20 tons. This is probably explained by the use of a gas generator engine.
