SpaceX Starship Launch Date Potentially Revealed In NASA Calendar [high-altitude WB-57 ex-spy planes reserved for March 11th]

Hamartia Antidote · Feb 16, 2023

SpaceX Starship Launch Date Potentially Revealed In NASA Calendar

SpaceX's Starship rocket can take to the skies during the second. week of March shows a NASA listing. Take a look!

wccftech.com

The SpaceX Starship Super Heavy during its hot fire test earlier this month. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX's highly anticipated Starship orbital flight test just got tentative launch data courtesy of a NASA calendar. The company has picked up the pace on conducting full scale tests this year, and January saw it fill the vehicle up with propellant as part of a wet dress rehearsal. After this, earlier this week, SpaceX finally attempted to fire up all 33 engines on the 230 feet tall Super Heavy booster. The test was almost a complete success since it met the time duration and saw 31 engines fully light up. It came a day after SpaceX president Ms. Gwynne Shotwell announced that her firm would not only conduct the hot fire test but also make an orbital flight attempt next month. SpaceX chief Mr. Elon Musk later reiterated Ms. Shotwell's timeline, and now we have a tentative date courtesy of NASA's WB-57 plane.

SpaceX's Starship Rocket Can Take To The Skies On March 11 Shows NASA Calendar

NASA's WB-57 is a vital agency asset that has made several appearances on its space live streams. The aircraft regularly tracks high-flying objects and is the first to get visuals of crewed spacecraft returning from the ISS. During atmospheric reentry, a spaceship encounters high temperatures, which leads to a communications blackout for a short duration. During the mission, this period is often one of the more stressful ones, as ground control teams cannot contact the astronauts to check up on their well-being. However, sometimes even before the communication link is established, the WB-57 provides important visual confirmation of reentry to the teams.

NASA also uses the aircraft to gain visual information about test launches, and now, the space agency has reserved a time slot for aircraft to cover the Starship orbital flight test. Its calendar marks March 11 as 'SpaceX Starship Launch (placeholder),' providing a tentative launch date for the rocket and indicating the assignment's arbitrary nature.

NASA's calendar for the WB-57 aircraft shows a tentative launch date for SpaceX's Starship orbital test flight

A screen grab of NASA's calendar for the WB-57 aircraft. Image: NASA Airborne Science Program
The WB-57 is a historic aircraft that was the first jet engine powered bomber in the air force's fleet to drop bombs in war. It has also been regularly used in the Afghanistan war, and right now is the only aircraft apart from the U2 with a service ceiling higher than 50,000 feet, with NASA regularly flying the place at 60,000 feet. This makes it uniquely suited to monitor high altitude rocket tests and spacecraft reentries, with the WB-57 providing coverage throughout the event until the ship lands.

According to Musk, Starship's highly awaited orbital test flight will throttle the rocket's engines to up to 90%. The latest hot fire test fixed the level at 50% with the rocket designed to generate up to 17 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and according to SpaceX, the test saw the rocket generate 7.9 million pounds - indicating that it met the objectives even though two engines had shut off.

Despite firing 31 engines, the rocket still set the world record for most engines fired at the same time, and if the upcoming orbital test flight is successful, Starship will also have set the record for the most thrust generated by a rocket. The current record is held by the Soviet Union's N1 rocket, which was designed to generate 10.2 million pounds of thrust and made four unsuccessful launch attempts. The current most powerful rocket on Earth is NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), powered by four liquid-fed rocket engines and two side boosters for 8.8 million pounds of thrust. Starship, at 90% thrust, will easily surpass both the SLS and the N1 by churning out 15.3 million pounds.