After two previous partial failures of Starship flight tests, Elon Musk’s spaceflight and astronautics company SpaceX is gearing up for the next launch for the 9th time.
On Thursday last week, SpaceX performed a static fire test on the Starship Super Heavy Booster 14. While a static fire test is a routine for flight-readiness checking, this one was unique.
The Booster 14 rocket successfully returned to the Starbase launch and got caught by the launch tower Chopsticks during the Flight 7 launch and landing test.
According to SpaceX, Booster 14’s 29 out of 33 Raptor engines remained intact after landing — hence, they are flight-proven. These engines performed a successful static fire test last week and are ready for the Flight 9 launch.
The first step toward Starship reusability.
— Tesla Oracle (@TeslaOracle_com) April 7, 2025
Booster 14 static fire test for Flight 9 preparations. pic.twitter.com/jNqfYqnjiY
Starship Reusability
The ultimate goal of Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX is to make Starship (spaceship + rocket booster) rapidly reusable. When achieved, reusability will significantly drop the costs of sending payloads and humans to space, the Moon, and Mars.
Rapid reusability will also benefit in saving time for reflight.
SpaceX’s Booster 14 rocket is the first major Starship component to be reused for another flight test, along with its 29 Raptor engines. The upcoming Flight 9 launch and landing-catch test is going to be even more interesting due to the reusability testing.
SpaceX is not just working to make flights reusable, the astronautics company also aims to make rapid reflight with ‘zero-touch’. This means that no human interference will be required for the reflight of the Starship spaceships (upper/2nd stage) and the Super Heavy rocket boosters (lower/1st stage).
The first Super Heavy reuse will be a step towards our goal of zero-touch reflight pic.twitter.com/9gdV4ufp7D
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 3, 2025
This is the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.
Elon Musk on Starship reusability
Now officially allocated to Flight 9, Booster 14 will fly again in what will be another Starship milestone, and a successful Static Fire test was conducted on Thursday.
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) April 4, 2025
For this and more:
➡️https://t.co/jiwQ1BBYjt pic.twitter.com/Dr3M6Uw6Lo
Elon Musk’s Timeline on Starship Reusability
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has pressed several times that ‘rapid reusability’ of Starship is essential for expanding human life to other planets out there in the universe, starting from Mars.
In an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast earlier this year, Elon Musk said that Starship reusability will be achieved this year (2025). When someone posted this short clip on X, Musk re-confirmed this timeline.
“There is a good chance of achieving full reusability of Starship this year. Full and immediate reflight of Starship, along with orbital refilling, probably happens next year,” Elon Musk wrote.
There is a good chance of achieving full reusability of Starship this year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 28, 2025
Full and immediate reflight of Starship, along with orbital refilling, probably happens next year.
This is the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary. https://t.co/HVtCd9EHKk
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. This rocket will be reused for the Flight 9 Starship launch (reusability timeline by Elon Musk, more).){kind=link}