In the final moments of Monday’s flight, the Starship raised its flaps to perform a “dynamic roll maneuver” over the Indian Ocean, then rolled to an upright position and fired its engines to leisurely down before splashdown, simulating maneuvers the rocket will perform on future missions returning to the launch site. This will be one of the main goals of the next phase of Starship’s test campaign starting next year.
Be patient for V3
It will likely be at least several months before SpaceX is ready to launch another spacecraft flight. Technicians at Starbase assemble the next Super Weighty Booster and the first Starship V3 vehicle. Once integrated, the booster and spacecraft are expected to undergo cryogenics and fire tests before SpaceX launches.
“We are now focused on the next generation of spacecraft and superheavyweights, with many vehicles currently under construction and preparing for testing,” SpaceX wrote on its website. “The next version will be used for Starship’s first orbital flights, operational payload missions, fuel transport and more as we work towards a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle to support Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
Starship V3 will have larger fuel tanks to augment the rocket’s payload, improved Raptor 3 engines, and improved cargo space to enable the launch of true Starlink satellites. SpaceX will also operate this version of the rocket for orbital refueling experiments, which will be a long-awaited milestone for the Starship program, currently scheduled for next year. On-orbit refueling is a key enabler of future spacecraft flights beyond low Earth orbit and is vital for SpaceX to meet Musk’s ambitions of sending ships to Mars, a long-time stated goal of the company.
It is also required for Starship flights to the Moon. NASA has signed contracts with SpaceX worth more than $4 billion to develop a human derivative of Starship that could land astronauts on the moon under the agency’s Artemis program. The orbital refueling demonstration is a key milestone in NASA’s lunar lander contract. Doing this as soon as possible is possible extremely important to NASAin which the Artemis moon landing schedule slips, in part due to Starship delays.