Watch SpaceX fire up Starship spacecraft engines ahead of 7th test flight

SpaceX has shared a video (below) showing a static fire test of its Starship spacecraft at the spaceflight company’s Starbase site near Boca Chica, Texas.

Static fire of Flight 7 Starship pic.twitter.com/3Xa2bYFkdp

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 15, 2024

It comes a week after the Elon Musk-led spaceflight company tested the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster ahead of the seventh test flight involving the integrated booster and spacecraft, collectively known as the Starship rocket.

The footage, shared on Sunday, shows the Starship firmly secured to the ground as SpaceX fires three of the spacecraft’s six engines for about eight seconds. Once the test data has been analyzed and the spacecraft deemed fit to fly, engineers will place the vehicle atop the 70-meter-tall Super Heavy booster for the seventh orbital test flight.

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The Starship spacecraft has three Raptor engines designed for operation at sea level and three Raptor Vacuum (RVac) engines optimized for use in the vacuum of space.

The Starship will use its engines for landing burns on both Earth and other celestial bodies, as well as for launches from locations where it lands other than Earth. In the seventh test flight, the spacecraft’s engines will ignite in orbit, and also again as the vehicle returns to Earth for a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Looking ahead, SpaceX is building a modified version of the Starship spacecraft that will land the first NASA crew on the moon in more than 50 years. The mission, Artemis III, was recently pushed back by at least a year to 2027. The Starship could also be used by NASA for the first crewed mission to Mars, which may take place some time in the 2030s.

Before that, SpaceX is continuing with its testing of the entire Starship, the most powerful rocket ever to fly. The mighty machine, which as a total height of 120 meters, has already performed six test flights, with the more recent ones sending the Starship spacecraft to orbit.

No target date has been officially announced for the seventh test, but an email sent by NASA to the Federal Aviation Administration cites January 11 as the current target date for the flight.