Watch SpaceX launch Starship flight seven with Starlink satellite test

SpaceX is set to launch the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday as the company looks to push development of the mammoth vehicle further, including with a crucial test of how it will deploy satellites.

The company has a time period, from 5 PM ET to 6 PM ET, to launch Starship from its private “Starbase” facility near Brownsville, Texas. If, for weather or technical reasons, SpaceX is unable to launch within this window, the company will postpone the attempt to a later date.

There will be no people on board the Starship flight. However, Elon Musk’s company is flying 10 “Starlink simulators” in the rocket’s payload bay and plans to try to deploy the satellite-like objects once in space. This is one key test of the rocket’s capabilityas SpaceX needs Starship to deploy its much larger and heavier next-generation Starlink satellites.

While SpaceX did not specify what the Starlink simulators are made of, mass simulators are commonly used in rocket ship development and are often simple structures of metal or concrete that weigh roughly the same as the object in question. Since the rocket does not reach orbit, the simulators are expected to follow a similar trajectory to the rocket and are designed to burn up during reentry.

Assuming the launch goes according to plan, the Starship would reach space and then travel halfway around Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff.

In addition, the rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster would return after separation from the Starship and land on the arms of the Company’s launch tower—a feat the Company accomplished on the fifth flight but missed on the sixth.

As with each previous flight, SpaceX aims to push development further by assessing additional Starship capabilities, including testing its heatshield tiles and its intense reentry trajectory.

Starship is crucial to the company’s plans, even with its $350 billion valuation and already dominant position in the space industry.

Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, the Starship stands 397 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter. SpaceX has flown the entire Starship rocket system on six space flight tests so far since April 2023 with a steadily increasing cadence.

The Super Heavy booster, which is 232 feet tall, is what begins the rocket’s journey into space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, which together produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust — about double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which will launch for the first time in 2022.

The starship itself, 165 feet tall, has six Raptor engines—three for use in Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.

The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The full system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant for launch

The starship flying on this launch, labeled Ship 33, also represents a second-generation version of the vehicle, called “Block 2.”

SpaceX noted that the “significant upgrades” to this vehicle include changes to the flaps on the vehicle’s nose, redesign of its propulsion system to increase performance, an improved flight computer, 30 cameras located along the vehicle to monitor the rocket, and a reinforced heat shield.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a manned lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis lunar program.