SpaceX has said that its next test flight of its massive Starship will be the ninth and will use Ship 35 and Booster 14 on this test flight. A specific date for the flight has not yet been publicly released, but extensive testing of the vehicle’s rocket engines has taken place over the past week and a successful static test took place on April 3rd.

“This booster previously launched and returned on Flight 7, and 29 of its 33 Raptor engines are flight proven,” said SpaceX.

Flight 7, which launched on January 16th, was only partially successful. The Super Heavy booster came back to Starbase, where it was caught by the launch tower’s ‘chopstick’ arms. But Starship’s 171-foot-tall (52-metre) upper stage exploded less than 10 minutes after liftoff. Test flight #8 on March 6th was also successful in the capture of the booster stage but the upper stage was again lost.

Starship is by any measure the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. Both of its stages are designed to be fully reusable. None of Starship’s eight test flights to date have reused a Super Heavy or a Starship upper stage, so Flight 9 will be groundbreaking.

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Tags: spacex, starship