{"id":367208,"date":"2020-09-14T09:59:09","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T07:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=367208"},"modified":"2020-09-14T10:02:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T08:02:33","slug":"spacex-prepares-to-launch-starship-on-18km-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/367208-spacex-prepares-to-launch-starship-on-18km-test-flight.html","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX prepares to launch Starship on 18km test flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX appears to be preparing to launch its Starship spacecraft on a major flight test in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, the company&#8217;s CEO Elon Musk <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1304836575075819520\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>tweeted<\/strong><\/a> the next prototype of the Starship spacecraft will be completed in about a week (19 September).<\/p>\n<p>Dubbed SN8, its build will include flaps and a nosecone, as opposed to the simulated weight placed on top of the previous prototypes.<\/p>\n<p>Following its completion, Musk said the SN8 will undergo static fire tests and ground checkouts before being launched to an altitude of 60,000 feet (18.3km).<\/p>\n<p>This is around double the cruising altitude of commercial passenger aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>Once it has reached this altitude, it will descend back to Earth before being brought down in a controlled landing.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not yet clear if this test will include SpaceX&#8217;s plans to drop the Starship in a horizontal position, before using what is being labeled as a &#8220;bellyflop&#8221; manoeuvre to reorient the spacecraft for a vertical landing.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube user C-bass Productions created a rendered video of what the test could look like with the manoeuvre.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DdTYMry7fq0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Starship plans<\/h3>\n<p>Following SpaceX&#8217;s first successful crewed mission with astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon 2 spacecraft, Musk sent an email to employees stating the development of Starship will be their primary focus.<\/p>\n<p>The company is building Starship as a fully reusable spacecraft for Earth orbit missions and future trips to Mars.<\/p>\n<p>While its current Dragon 2 capsule and Falcon 9 rockets are also reusable, Starship will be capable of carrying a much larger number of people and a heavier payload.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas the Dragon 2 capsule has space for seven astronauts, SpaceX is aiming for a 100-person capacity on the Starship.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of payload, the Falcon 9 rocket can currently carry 60 Starlink satellites at a time, while Starship will have enough room and power to hold 400 satellites.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Test hops<\/h3>\n<p>As part of Starship&#8217;s development, SpaceX recently completed two successful test hops with its SN5 and SN6 prototypes at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site in Boca Chica.<\/p>\n<p>These tests involved a launch and controlled climb to an altitude of 500 foot (150 metres) before descent and landing.<\/p>\n<p>The video below shows the flight test of the SN5 Starship prototype.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s1HA9LlFNM0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/366390-virgin-galactic-to-begin-final-flight-tests-before-sending-tourists-to-space.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Virgin Galactic to begin final flight tests before sending tourists to space<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX appears to be preparing to launch its Starship spacecraft on a major flight test in the coming weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":367222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[11373,11375,60889],"class_list":["post-367208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-elon-musk","tag-spacex","tag-starship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367234,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367208\/revisions\/367234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}