HUGE NEWS!! SpaceX Super Heavy BN4 PREPARED!
It has been a busy few weeks for SpaceX.
SpaceX has moved Starship SN16 straight from its Boca Chica, Texas factory to a nearby ‘rocket garden,’
all but guaranteeing an early retirement.
Built as the first of several planned backups to Starship SN15, which debuted a number of significant
upgrades in April and May, it appears that Starship serial number 16 (SN16) has been retired to a display
stand after its only sibling became the first full-size prototype to successfully survive a launch and
landing on May 5th. SN16 actually reached its full height before SN15 lifted off and was more or less
complete by May 10th. Since then, the prototype has remained more or less untouched, seemingly
waiting for SpaceX to decide its fate in lieu of Starship SN15’s major success.
Ultimately, with SN16 now sitting side by side with SN15 at what will likely become a sort of open-air
SpaceX museum, it appears that the company has made up its mind.
Given that SN16 was quite literally completed within days of SN15’s launch and landing, it seemed an
almost foregone conclusion that SN16 would fly. For a few weeks, it even looked possible that SpaceX
would attempt to reuse Starship SN15. However, SpaceX appeared to decide against reuse and rolled its
first flight-proven full-size Starship from the pad to a plot of land expected to host a future ‘garden’ for
retired SpaceX rockets.
Now let’s talk about the significant progress SpaceX has made towards its first true Super Heavy booster
BN4, which has made it to the launch site.
A few days ago, technicians installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy known as Booster 4 at
SpaceX's Starbase site, near the South Texas village of Boca Chica. And now, the company rolled the
230-foot-tall (70 meters) Booster 4 from its build facility to the launch site, a few kilometers down the
road.
SpaceX will soon start subjecting Booster 4 to a series of pressurization and engine tests. If all goes well
with those trials, the rocket will be poised for an orbital launch attempt, which could occur within the
next few months.
Super Heavy is the first stage of Starship, a fully reusable, two-stage transportation system that SpaceX
is developing to carry people and cargo to the moon, Mars, and other distant destinations. NASA
recently selected Starship as the crewed lander for its Artemis program, which aims to establish a
sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s.
The final Starship spacecraft will have six Raptors, and the final Super Heavy will likely be powered by 32
of the engines, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.
The booster will launch on an orbital test flight in the coming months if all goes according to plan.
SpaceX's first true Super Heavy booster has made it to the launch site.
Starship's upper stage is a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft that is also known, somewhat
confusingly, as Starship. The final Starship spacecraft will have six Raptors, and the final Super Heavy is
eventually expected to use between 29 and 32 Raptor engines as standard when it is completed, SpaceX
founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.
The booster measures 230 feet in height and 30 feet in diameter and will be used to launch SpaceX's
Starship spacecraft, a fully reusable transport system for interplanetary travel into orbit and eventually
to Mars, which is Musk's grand target.
Starship spacecraft prototypes have been launched before. This past May, for example, a three-engine
vehicle known as SN15 ("Serial No. 15") flew to a maximum altitude of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) and
came down for a safe landing back on Earth.
SpaceX performed engine tests last month on Booster 4's predecessor, the three-Raptor Booster 3, but
no Super Heavy has gotten off the ground to date. Booster 4 will change that if all goes according to
plan. SpaceX plans to launch the rocket, topped with the SN20 Starship prototype, from Starbase on an
uncrewed orbital test mission.
Shortly after launch, Booster 4 will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles (32 km) offshore.
SN20 will power itself to orbit, complete one loop around our planet and come down in the Pacific
Ocean near the Hawaiian island of Kauai, about 90 minutes after liftoff.
Next on the agenda for SpaceX was the first static fire test of Super Heavy booster BN3
SpaceX has successfully conducted a three-engine "static fire" test on the third iteration of its Super
Heavy booster, one of the key components behind its ambitions for interplanetary travel.
The testing at the suborbital site will clear the path for Booster 4 – already being stacked in the High Bay
– to take up residence at the Orbital Launch Site (OLS), an area that continues to undergo preparations,
including the installation of the final section of the Launch Integration Tower.
#spacex #superheavy #bn4
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