SpaceX sent Starship Flight 9 upper stage for testing but for the second time

SpaceX is preparing to launch Starship Flight 9 sometime soon, and it has transported the upper stage to the test site for the second time to ensure everything goes right with this launch after the past two flight failures.

A well over 30 seconds clip posted on social media site X showed the ship 35 moving to Starbase over the transportation vehicle. The drone views showed some wonderful parts of the journey.

As of the time of writing this article, Ship 35 is standing tall at Massey’s test site at Starbase and ready to ignite its engines for a static fire. Such tests are conducted for a short period of time in a real launch environment and without leaving the launch pad.

However, it’s not the first time ship 35 has reached to this place. A week ago, SpaceX sent this upper stage for static fire at the Massey’s for a long duration engine burn. Video footage from X suggests that the ship experienced some kind of small fire explosion by the end, but there wasn’t any hardware damage.

The rocket maker’s Starship team is involved in refining the design challenges that are causing problems.

SpaceX Starship Static Fire at Starbase, Texas (Credit – SpaceX)

During Flight 7 and 8, SpaceX successfully separated the hot-staging to send the booster for a catch at the launch site but failed to continue the mission due to ship’s engine section issues.

Each time, the ship caught fire in the aft portion before completing the ascent burn. This led to the loss of Raptor engines, followed by altitude control loss and then rapid unscheduled disassembly.

These new issues have emerged after SpaceX employed a new ship with an upgraded propulsion system and new avionics. Prior to this, the previous version had already completed its suborbital phase more than two times.

This time, the rocket maker is extra precautious over the Starship Flight 9 and the upper stage fire test should be verified with all Yes, before moving for an actual launch.