SpaceX Starship Flight 7 ship is ready for engine test

SpaceX has rolled out a new Starship to the test site to ignite engines and prepare this vehicle for the Flight 7 early next year. Visuals shared on the social media site X show Starship coming out of the mega bay and traveling to the test site.

This ship is the second stage of the integrated Starship system and is designed to carry payloads in orbit and beyond. It equips six Raptor engines for space travel and lands the ship vertically on the launch pad for catch.

Through these flight tests, SpaceX is checking flight design stability and on-ground systems to prepare the rocket for real missions.

SpaceX Starship rolling out (Source – SpaceX)

The company has made significant progress in achieving vehicle stability in the past three flights. During Flight 5, the Super Heavy booster was caught by the launch tower arms. It was the Starship program’s first step toward reusability.

However, the catch could not be repeated with the sixth flight due to technical issues in the launch tower.

On the other hand, the second stage continues to improve its performance against high heat as it descends from the space. The heat shield tiles are doing better than previous generations.

During the last test, SpaceX successfully led the Starship to the splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean, it also changed the flight time from morning to afternoon to observe the splashdown.

SpaceX Starship at test site (Source – SpaceX)

All went well with the new flight and the company successfully splashdown the rocket into the sea in broad daylight. Still, the second stage of reusability is far away and it needs to perform all tests right with Flight 7 to attempt a launch pad landing with Flight 8 or 9 in 2025.

A few days ago, SpaceX completed a static fire test for the first stage and was ready for the upcoming flight mission. The flight 7 is targeted for mid-January in 2025.