SpaceX moves Starship to the launch site for Flight 8

SpaceX has now moved the Starship Flight 8 ship to the launch site ahead of flight 8, the company will stack this second stage on top of the Super Heavy booster to fly as soon as Monday.

SpaceX uses custom-built vehicles to transport the rocket from the factory in the Bay area to the launch site at Starbase.

Flight 8 is important for the upper stage, it needs to get things done that weren’t successful during the previous test mission. That includes a successful ascent after hot-staging.

In Flight 7, the company used a next-generation ship with new, more propellant capacity and improved avionics but the ship couldn’t finish the ascent burn after first stage separation.

In a post-flight investigation, the rocket maker noted that a propellant leak exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.

Source – SpaceX

The company has patched this problem in the new ship and upgraded the forward flaps to reduce their exposure with the reentry heating.

During flight 8, SpaceX will attempt to deploy five Starlink simulators, the company has made these copies based on the exact size and weight of the next-generation Starlink satellites.

These satellites will fly within the same sub-orbital trajectory as the ship and dispose upon reentry.

The ship will also perform a single engine relight before marking a reentry in Earth’s atmosphere. From here, the Starship Flight 8 upper stage will start high-heat endurance including several in-flight experiments to prepare for launch site landing.

If everything goes fine, the company will try to land the upper stage on the launch site with Flight 9.

Upon completing the descent, the ship will fire its last burn for a flip maneuver and splash down in the Indian Ocean.

(source)