Enlarge / SpaceX’s Booster 7 undergoes a static hearth take a look at with 11 engines on Tuesday in South Texas. (credit score: SpaceX)
On Tuesday, SpaceX test-fired its Tremendous Heavy rocket for about 12 seconds, making it the longest period firing of the large booster to this point. The take a look at, which ignited 11 of the 33 Raptor rocket engines, got here as SpaceX continues working towards an orbital launch try of this Tremendous Heavy first stage and its Starship higher stage.
Earlier this month, SpaceX fired 14 Raptor engines on this booster for a couple of seconds, so Tuesday’s take a look at didn’t set a brand new report concerning the variety of engines examined. Nonetheless, this “lengthy period” firing is the longest time period that so many Raptor engines have been fired without delay.
So what occurs now? The trail to orbit for SpaceX and its Starship launch system is unclear. Beforehand, SpaceX founder Elon Musk stated the subsequent step was to fireplace a subset of Tremendous Heavy’s engines for about 20 seconds to check autogenous pressurization. This technique of pressurizing gas tanks makes use of gases generated on board the rocket reasonably than a individually loaded, inert fuel equivalent to helium.
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