The most risky and decisive in the vertiginous history of the rocket

All ready for the ninth Starship test flight, the most important mission so far after the final explosives of the previous releases. With Elon Musk back in Starbase, Spacex seeks to complete pending objectives and, as if that were not enough, try for the first time the reuse of one of the rocket stages, the super heavy propeller.

Date and time of launch. Following the pattern of the previous flights, the ninth launch of Starship is scheduled to take off in the afternoon, so that the reentry of the ship on the Indian ocean occurs in the sunlight. The launch window opens on Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m., local time of the newly incorporated city of Starbase, Texas.

In other cities:

• Madrid, Spain (CEST, UTC+2): Wednesday, May 28 at 01:30
• Mexico City, Mexico (CST, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (Art, UTC-3): Tuesday, May 27 at 8:30 p.m.
• Bogotá, Colombia (COT, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m.
• Lima, Peru (Pet, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m.
• Santiago, Chile (CLT, UTC-4): Tuesday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m.
• Caracas, Venezuela (Vet, UTC-4): Tuesday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m.

How to see it live. Spacex will broadcast the flight Through its website and His official X profile. The retransmission will begin 30 minutes before takeoff. On this occasion, too They will broadcast live A talk by Elon Musk about the future of the company and its path to the conquest of Mars, which will take place about six and a half hours before the launch.

For the most enthusiastic, YouTube channels like Nasaspaceflight, Lab Padre and Everyday Astronaut They usually offer retransmissions with their own cameras from the immediate vicinity of the launch platform. In Spanish, the coverage of Space border, Mission control, Manuel Mazzanti either Spacexstormamong others.

All eyes put on the ship. This ninth attempt comes after the investigations of flights 7 and 8, which ended in the loss of the upper stage of the rocket. Spacex has clarified that the causes were different. The seventh flight succumbed to unexpected vibrations that caused a liquid oxygen leak. The eighth, with the vibrations already mitigated, failed for a hardware problem in one of the central raptor engines of the ship, which caused a mixture of propellents and a violent explosion. With the lessons learned, all looks are put on this ninth flight.

Double Tirabuzón of the Super Heavy. One of the great milestones of this mission is that the propeller, whose serial number is Booster 14, will be the first to be reused after a successful take -off and landing in the seventh mission. Although 29 of its 33 Raptor engines have already flown, Spacex has carried out exhaustive inspections and replaced single -use components. This time, Booster 14 will not try to be caught by the tower. Instead, he will perform a series of risky experiments during his descent on the Gulf of Mexico:

• Post-separation controlled turn: several hot separation adapter vents will be blocked so that the thrust of Starship engines make it spin in a known direction, saving propellant.
• Greater angle of attack: it will try to fly with a more aggressive angle during the descent to increase atmospheric resistance and reduce speed, needing less propenting for landing.
• Motor tests in spareness: one of the three central engines will be deactivated intentionally during the final phase of the landing ignition to test the capacity of a backup engine. Then, it will go to only two central engines before hard ametering in the Gulf.

Many experiments to do. The Starship ship (the number S35) also has a full agenda because it must complete the objectives that Spacex could not demonstrate in the two previous flights:

• First load deployment: It will display in its suborbital trajectory eight Starlink satellite simulators, similar in size to the next generation of the Spacex constellation.
• Motor reached in space: he will try again to reade of a Raptor engine in a vacuum to get out of his trajectory.
• Recentrada experiments: Spacex has eliminated a significant number of thermal tiles of the ship’s shield to test vulnerable areas. It will also test new metal tiles (one with active cooling) and functional capture accessories for future landings in the second tower. In addition, the borders of the tiles have softened to avoid hot points. To top it off, the reentry profile will be more aggressive to deliberately stressed the rear ailerons. The objective is a controlled ameter in the Indian Ocean, where there will already be dawn.

Why this flight is so crucial. Starship’s ninth flight is not just one more test. It is an attempt of Spacex to demonstrate the rapid reuse of the super heavy, validate solutions to previous failures in the Starship and, above all, to collect critical data in extreme conditions to approach the objective of a totally reusable launch system. The success in these experiments could accelerate the program, which already has permission to make 25 annual flights. For now, this is the third flight of 2025. Whatever happens, the emotion is guaranteed.

Image | Spacex

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