Science

May 19 launch will put redesigned rocket, pad, and engines through their paces

SpaceX has named the earliest date for the next Starship launch – May 19.

The company has already completed a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) so the next step is to cross fingers and launch the stainless steel behemoth.

The launch window for the 12th flight test of Starship opens at 5:30 pm CT, and, as with previous test flights, the vehicle will be on a suborbital trajectory. The launch, from an entirely new pad, will be the first of SpaceX's third-generation Starship and will validate that there have been no inadvertent regressions.

Raptor 3 engines power the Starship and Super Heavy Booster. On the booster, SpaceX has reduced the number of grid fins used during recovery from four to three, increased their size by 50 percent, and added a new catch point, although there are no plans to catch the booster on the next flight – it is destined for the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX wrote: "As this is the first flight test of a significantly redesigned vehicle, the booster will not attempt a return to the launch site for catch."

For Starship, changes include a redesign of the propulsion system, increased propellant tank size, and improvements to the reaction control system. The Starlink dispenser mechanism has also been updated to increase satellite deployment speed – 22 mass simulators will be carried on this mission.

Ultimately, this is a considerably enhanced rocket, with more powerful engines, and a new launchpad and tower. Hence the need to demonstrate that nothing has been broken along the way.

The objectives are therefore familiar. SpaceX will call the flight of the booster a success if there's a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and finally a landing burn in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship's objectives are to deploy Starlink simulators, which will also be on a suborbital trajectory to burn up harmlessly, restart a single Raptor engine, and survive a controlled re-entry, although the vehicle will not be recovered for reuse this time around.

Two of the Starlink simulators will be able to scan and capture imagery of the vehicle's heat shield, allowing engineers to assess its readiness for return to the launch site on future missions.

In addition to painting some heat shield tiles white to simulate missing tiles for the imaging test, a single tile has been removed to see what happens to the surrounding tiles.

Finally, the vehicle will attempt a dynamic banking maneuver to mimic the trajectory of a future return-to-Starbase mission. ®