Elon Musk’s astronautics company SpaceX released the details of the changes and upgrades done to the Flight 7 Starship upper stage (Ship 33). These mods and upgrades will be tested for the first time in the Flight 7 launch and landing test that’s scheduled for NET Friday, 10th January (Update: Delayed by a few days).
SpaceX will attempt the first-ever Starship payload deployment in space in the Flight 7 test (IFT-7). This is one more interesting addition to this flight test worth watching on the live stream.
“A new ship, new year, and new limits. Excitement still guaranteed,” SpaceX wrote on X (Twitter).
The coming weekend will be filled with excitement for spaceflight and SpaceX fans as Starship’s 7th flight test is expected to happen on Saturday 11th January.
This new year will be transformational for Starship, with the goal of bringing reuse of the entire system online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate towards being able to send humans and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
SpaceX
Flight 7 Ship 33 Improvements (Starship V2)
A block of planned upgrades to the Starship upper stage will debut on this flight test, bringing major improvements to reliability and performance.
SpaceX Flight 7 official update
SpaceX Flight 7 press release outlined the improvements to Starship’s upper stage for this mission. It’s important to remember that Ship 33 is the first Starship V2 prototype which will be used for the Flight 7 test.
Starship V2 has many upgrades, improvements, and modifications over the previous generation Starships that were in test operations until the Flight 6 launch and landing test (IFT-6).
Starship V2 is also taller compared to the V1 generation and has more volume for propellant as well. The new upgrades enable the new generation Starship 2 to carry a longer mission in space.
Following is the list of improvements SpaceX made to the V2 Starship 33 for the Flight 7 test:
- Flight 7 Starship’s forward flaps have been reduced in size and shifted towards the vehicle tip and away from the heat shield, significantly reducing their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling.
- Redesigned propulsion system, including a 25 percent increase in propellant volume
- A new fuel feedline system for the vehicle’s Raptor vacuum engines
- Redesigned vacuum jacketing of feedlines
- Improved propulsion avionics module controlling vehicle valves and reading sensors
- All of the above upgrades add additional vehicle performance and the ability to fly longer missions
- Improved new-generation thermal protection system (TPS) heat shield tiles
- A backup layer to protect from missing or damaged tiles
- Completely redesigned vehicle’s avionics (adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to launch site)
- Avionics upgrades include a more powerful flight computer, integrated antennas that combine Starlink, GNSS, and backup RF communication functions into each unit, redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors, integrated smart batteries and power units that distribute data, and 2.7MW of power across the ship to 24 high-voltage actuators, and an increase to more than 30 vehicle cameras giving engineers insight into hardware performance across the vehicle during flight.
- With Starlink, the vehicle is capable of streaming more than 120 Mbps of real-time high-definition video and telemetry in every phase of flight, providing invaluable engineering data to rapidly iterate across all systems.
First Starship Payload Deployment of Starlink Simulators
One goal of the Starship program besides the Moon and Mars is the deployment of Starlink V2 satellites into space. This is a test flight with the new generation (V2) prototype Ship 33 and Booster 14.
One of the Flight 7 Starship mission objectives is to deploy 10 Starlink V2 simulator satellites on the Ship’s trajectory in space. Starship is the only spaceship that is going to be capable of deploying the larger and heavier Starlink V2 satellites. Falcon 9 currently deploys the first-generation Starlinks into space.
While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
Starship Flight 7 Planned Experiments
Thermal Protection System / Heat Tiles
SpaceX has also shared the details of its plan to perform the experiments during the Flight 7 Starship launch and landing test. These experiments span from testing and evaluation of the newly-designed thermal protection system for reentry burn.
The flight test will include several experiments focused on ship return to launch site and catch. On Starship’s upper stage, a significant number of tiles will be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry.
On the sides of the vehicle, non-structural versions of ship catch fittings are installed to test the fittings’ thermal performance, along with a smoothed and tapered edge of the tile line to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test.
The ship’s reentry profile is being designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure.
Launch Tower and Chopsticks
Finally, several radar sensors will be tested on the tower chopsticks with the goal of increasing the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle during catch.
Hardware upgrades to the launch and catch tower will increase reliability for booster catch, including protections to the sensors on the tower chopsticks that were damaged at launch and resulted in the booster offshore divert on Starship’s previous flight test.
Super Heavy Booster to Include Flight 5 Raptor Engine
To achieve rapid reusability of Starship for the Moon and Mars missions in the future, SpaceX needs to be able to reuse major parts of both the Starship space vehicle and its Super Heavy launch booster.
For the first time, SpaceX will use flight-proven hardware from a previous flight test in the Flight 7 test (IFT-7). Flight 7 Starship Super Heavy will include a Raptor engine from the Flight 5 booster that helped in the historical landing-catch of a rocket for the first time.
SpaceX wrote in its press-release update:
The Super Heavy booster will utilize flight-proven hardware for the first time, reusing a Raptor engine from the booster launched and returned on Starship’s fifth flight test.
Hardware upgrades to the launch and catch tower will increase reliability for booster catch, including protections to the sensors on the tower chopsticks that were damaged at launch and resulted in the booster offshore divert on Starship’s previous flight test.
Stay tuned for future updates on Starship and SpaceX, Follow us on:
Google News | X (Twitter) | Flipboard | WhatsApp Channel | RSS (Feedly).
Related SpaceX / Starship News
- SpaceX moves Flight 7 Starship to the launch tower, Elon Musk shares futuristic views of Starbase
- SpaceX confirms new date for Starship Flight 7 — first look at Starlink V2 simulators
- SpaceX delays Flight 7 Starship launch, here’s the new expected schedule
- SpaceX shares the details of Flight 7 Starship V2 upgrades — first payload deployment of Starlink simulators, more
- Static fire test of Flight 7 Starship pushes SpaceX one step closer to the launch
- SpaceX moves Flight 7 Starship to Starbase for pre-launch testing
