SpaceX conducted a “static fire test” on Wednesday (December 20) with the prototype of the upper stage of the Starship known as Ship 28, briefly igniting the vehicle’s Raptor engines while it remained anchored to the platform at the company’s Starbase base in southern Texas.
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Ship 28 is being prepared to perform the third test flight of the Starship, which SpaceX intends to launch in the coming weeks. And this schedule seemingly remains on track as Wednesday’s test went well.
“Starship Flight 3 successfully completed a total static fire with all six Raptor engines,” said SpaceX in a tweet, which also featured the video of the test.
The Starship consists of two elements: an enormous first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 50-meter upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship.
Both stages are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable and are powered by SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engine.
Super Heavy boasts 33 Raptors, and Starship is powered by six of them.
Photos and videos: Reproduction Twitter @SpaceX