Starship’s third flight: here’s what should happen

SpaceX has published the flight plan and objectives for the next take-off of Starship and its booster, the Super Heavy, scheduled for 14 March. A new trajectory and some never-before conducted tests, such as hatch opening and fuel transfer forin orbit refuelling technology

BY EMILIO COZZI

Starship is ready for its next liftoff.

It will lift off for the third time from the Texas coast heading into space, but with a different flight plan than previous attempts. Firstly because the shuttle will no longer arrive in the Pacific, but will brake to ditch in the Indian Ocean.

Then because, during the flight, it will test some crucial technologies, both for its future use in the Artemis lunar programme, such as orbital refuelling , and for the planned ‘terrestrial’ activities, such as the opening of hatches for the release of satellites.

About the rest, SpaceX will once again have to get the most powerful rocket in history off the ground and then return the Super Heavy launcher in a controlled manner. The goal, this time not to be missed, will in fact be to bring it down in the Gulf of Mexico to simulate a landing.

It will start, as always, from Boca Chica, a stone’s throw from the shoreline. The date set by SpaceX, 14 March, could change, because at the moment the Federal Aviation Administration (Faa) authorisations are still lacking, but they should not be delayed.

In short, this is it.

After lift-off , the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines will lift the 122-metre-high behemoth and continue to propel it for two minutes and 42 seconds. Immediately afterwards, Starship’s thrusters will fire (this is the ‘hot stage’) and the space-bound ship will detach from the first stage, which will instead return to earth. At that point, about seven minutes after liftoff, the first important test will begin: the booster will attempt a ‘landing’ manoeuvre, as we are now used to seeing the first stages of the Falcon 9 do. It will descend into the sea, where it is not likely to cause any damage, but this will serve to fine-tune the reuse technology for the Super Heavy as well.

Splashdown in the Indian Ocean

The marine destination is still a holiday destination, but much closer. The first two flights involved Starship exiting the atmosphere in a sub-orbital flight, destined to end after an hour and a half near Hawaii. It never went as planned. In the previous attempt, last November, everything had ended in minutes with a controlled explosion in the Atlantic, just north of Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands. According to SpaceX, it was not a failure. This time, however, much more convincing results are expected.

Firstly, to understand how the engines behave in outer space. In November, Starship had reached an altitude of 150 kilometres, conventionally beyond the atmosphere, but for a very short time. This time, if all goes according to plan, it will be possible to test the Raptors’ re-ignition during the one-hour cruise during the suborbital flight (Starship will not enter Earth orbit). Once the cruise phase is over, the spacecraft will in fact have to dive back into the atmosphere and, in SpaceX’s plans, perform manoeuvres to reorient itself, with a view (in the future) to a landing. It will also be the first time that Starship will face a real re-entry and the stresses that friction with the air implies for the heat shield.

Opening the hatch and refuelling in orbit

Among the new features that did not appear in the flight plan of previous tests are two key elements for the future use of the shuttle. The first is trivial but crucial: 11 minutes and 56 seconds after take-off, Starship will open the cargo hatch. It is not an ogive that opens halfway as with many rockets, but a hatch through which cargo, satellites, and eventually astronauts will one day transit. Starship is in fact not only designed for the Moon, but given its capacity also and above all to cope with intense commercial activity. It can carry up to 150 tonnes in low orbit (that’s a lot, a lot of satellites, even to grow the Starlink constellation, which envisages tens of thousands of them) and about thirty in geostationary orbit. And if, as expected, once in orbit it is able to refuel, the spacecraft would be capable of transporting 100 tonnes to the Selenian soil.

 And it is precisely with the Moon (and Mars) in mind that the second test will be carried out, 24 minutes after the launch: with the hatch still open, a demonstration of propellant transfer from one tank to another will be attempted, in conditions of absolute vacuum. It will be another first, a fundamental step forward for more complex and never-before-attempted operations, when a Starship in ‘tank’ version will have to dock another one and refuel it. There are many, including in Europe, who, like NASA, will be watching the outcome of the test carefully.

Aiming at the Moon

SpaceX is in fact tasked with providing the American Space Agency with a vehicle for a lunar landing scheduled, as of today, for the end of 2026. In order to make its way to the Moon with its very heavy cargo, Starship, according to a NASA executive in January, will have to carry out a number of in-orbit refuelling in the order of ‘high teens‘: that means launching between 14 and 19 Starships. Not only that; before embarking a crew, it will also have to carry out a demonstration mission of descent and ascent from the lunar surface. The schedule is tight.

The Artemis programme has also been delayed due to difficulties that arose during the first unmanned mission to the Orion capsule system, but it is no secret that one of the concerns is precisely SpaceX’s development delays. Whose first two flights, even if one does not consider them failures as Elon Musk and his company do, cannot be called a triumph. What SpaceX calls the ‘rapid iterative development approach’, something that can be translated as less lab testing and more ‘real’ launches, has already guaranteed the spectacular ‘fireworks’ promised by Musk. An approach to technology development not without its critics. One has to believe that the tycoon, this time, would sign up to see fewer explosions and more results.