As its fifth test flight nears, SpaceX on Friday (July 26) ignited the engines of its Starship spacecraft. With the test flight likely to be just weeks away, static fires were ignited with the 165-foot-tall Starship upper stage at the Starbase facility near South Texas' Brownsville. Static fires refer to the brief ignition of engines as the vehicle remains anchored to a launch or test pad. Common to pre-launch trials, the static fires add weight to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk's July 5 statement that the Starship will fly again "in four weeks". Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing nearly 400 feet tall when fully stacked. Its two stages — the spacecraft Starship, and the booster called Super Heavy — are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Slow motion view of Flight 5 Starship’s six Raptor engines during static fire pic.twitter.com/5395Vmq2j4 — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024 Starship's four test flights were held in April 2023, November 2023 and March and June this year, each showing better results. On its most recent mission, the Starship reached space and survived the return trip through Earth's atmosphere, while Super Heavy hit its splashdown target in the Gulf of Mexico, according to space.com. Its power and reusability makes the Starship an ideal choice for space missions. NASA has picked Starship as its first crewed lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration. Here are visuals from Starship's latest test flight: The fourth flight of Starship brought us closer to a rapidly reusable future pic.twitter.com/maSky0Rsjy — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 4, 2024 In other news, SpaceX is in talks with US and Australian officials to land and recover one of its Starship rockets off Australia’s coast, a possible first step towards a bigger presence for Elon Musk’s company in the region as the two countries bolster security ties, people familiar with the plans told Reuters.
