Third Times the Charm? Starship Flight 9

Date:
Mon, 26 May 2025 19:46:11 +0000

Description:
After a pair of Ship failures for Block 2 and an extended downtime between flights, The post Third Times the Charm? Starship Flight 9 appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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After a pair of Ship failures for Block 2 and an extended downtime between flights, SpaceX is set to try and break the streak with Flight 9 and get a Ship past Second Stage Engine Cut Off (SECO). Also, Booster 14 will be flying for its second time, marking the first reuse of a Super Heavy Booster in the Starship program. Launch is set for Tuesday evening from Starbase, Texas.







Flight 7 & 8

So far, Block 2 of the Ship has not had the success SpaceX wouldve liked. Flight 7 failed shortly before SECO due to fires in the attic above the
engine bay shielding. These fires resulted from damage to the Ship from a Harmonic Response during the Ships ascent burn.

This would result in the vehicle losing control, leading to a breakup over the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Booster, however, was a different story. Booster 14 completed its full flight profile and was caught back at the
launch site, becoming the second Super Heavy Booster to land. Booster 14 returned to Mega Bay 1 for refurbishment and is now set to fly on Flight 9. Flight 7 in Flight (Credit: BocaChicaGal for NSF)

Flight 8 also saw the Ship lost just before SECO. According to SpaceX, a Raptor Sea Level engine had a hardware failure, resulting in a fire in the engine bay, eventually leading to the vehicles demise. In the update, SpaceX stated that the Harmonic Resonance issue from Flight 7 had been fixed and
that the problems encountered on Flight 8 were unrelated to Flight 7.
However, SpaceX did not address the problem with the Raptor Vacuum engine
seen during the flight stream.

As with Flight 7, SpaceX would catch Booster 15 and eventually return it to Mega Bay 1 for refurbishment. If SpaceX reflies it, it is unknown which
flight this booster is slated to fly on again. Booster 15 Landing (Credit: BocaChicaGal for NSF)

Mission objectives, Trajectory, and Timelines

Flight 9s success is riding on many expectations and objectives, with the Ship failures of the last two flights and the first reflight of a Super Heavy Booster, an essential step for the program towards reusability.

In terms of trajectory, the Ship is set to remain the same with a projected splashdown in the Indian Ocean after trying to complete the experiments that the past two ships couldnt complete due to their failure before SECO. These objectives include deploying eight Starlink simulators, a Raptor engine relight, and heat shield experiments. The heat shield experiments are also
the same, with some metallic tiles, an actively cooled tile, the removal of tiles across the Ship to test durability on reentry, and a tapered edge of tiles between the aft flaps and the catch points. Pins on Ship 35, via Max Evans

Booster 14s trajectory is going to be different from when it first flew on Flight 7. SpaceX is not attempting to catch this Booster. Instead, Booster 14 will perform an experimental reentry to test certain objectives. During hostaging and the Booster flip, Booster 14 will not flip in a random
direction based on directional push from the Ship, which is what has occurred in the past.

This time, Booster 14 will flip in a controlled direction with the help of a blocked portion of the hotstage ring to push it in a known direction. This maneuver is to help require less fuel in reserve for the flip, which will
lead to more fuel to be used for the ascent burn. After this flip and the boost back burn, Booster 14 will reenter with a higher angle of attack relative to the air flow. This means that the Booster will fly more horizontally, which will create extra drag, thus slowing the Booster down more.

This, in turn, should allow for less fuel to be needed during the landing burn to slow down, thus allowing for more fuel on the ascent burn as well. Overall, these improvements are to try and refine the Boosters trajectory and have more fuel to be used to put more mass into orbit. Super Heavy booster going from hot-staging to tower catch on Starship's seventh flight test pic.twitter.com/Cn7mIOMsaM

SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 21, 2025



See Also SpaceX Starship Program L2 SpaceX Section NSF Store Click here to Join L2

During the landing burn, SpaceX will also perform an experiment, Booster 14 will demonstrate a unique engine configuration during its landing burn.
SpaceX plans to intentionally disable one of the three center engines during the final phase of the landing burn and attempt to use an engine from the center ring of 10 as a backup. This will demonstrate the capability of engine out and engine backups in the future.

In terms of prelaunch timelines, a few changes have been made to the propellant loading of Starship for this flight. Ship is set to start Liquid Oxygen (LOX) propellant load five mins and 36 seconds earlier than on Flight
8 and Liquid Methane (LCH4) load two mins and 19 seconds earlier. It is unknown why SpaceX is starting Ship prop load this much earlier than on
Flight 8. Boosters propellant load has only a few seconds difference compared to Flight 8.

In terms of during flight, most items have changed a few seconds, and
payload deploy is set to go about a minute later than what was scheduled on Flight 8. Flight 9 Propellant Load Timeline (Credit: SpaceX)



Ship 35 and Booster 14-2

Ship 35 has had an interesting journey to launch readiness. It was the first Ship since Ship 24 to have performed at least four separate engine tests. The reason for this seems to have been at least two Raptor Vacuum swaps. It is unknown why SpaceX chose to change its engine; it seems to have been out of
an abundance of caution.

Ship 35 has many similarities to Ships 33 and 34, at least externally. Over the past few flights, SpaceX has introduced mitigations to try to prevent the failure modes that resulted in the loss of Ships 33 and 34.

Ship 35 is set to have upgrades to its Raptor engine mounts and an improved nitrogen purge system for the ships attic. There are likely many other internal changes that cant be seen, such as the upgrades to solve the
harmonic response issue detected on Flight 7 with Ship 33. There is one major outside visible change: the addition of structural catch pins. Ship 35
Rollout for Flight (Credit Max Evans)

These arent just bolted on like the pins used on Ship 33 and Ship 34. These catch pins are integrated into the structure of the payload bay through at least a massive double plate and stringers to distribute the load. The pins are a slightly different design from what is currently on the booster, as the pin that slots into the landing rail is smaller and thinner.

Booster 14s journey to Flight 9 started on Feb 15, 2024, when it first started construction. Since then, it has performed a pair of static fires and even a flight on Flight 7, where it performed nearly flawlessly, becoming the second Super Heavy Booster to be caught.

Visually, Booster 14 has one major change between Flight 7 and Flight 9: the discoloration from hot staging and reentry. Its going to be interesting to
see how multiple flights add to the discoloration in the future.

The only other major change has been on the hot stage ring, where SpaceX has blocked off a section on the Quick Disconnect side to aid in the boosters
flip after stage separation. Booster 14-2 on Launch Mount A (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

Date of Launch

SpaceX is targeting no earlier than Tuesday, May 27, with the ~90-minute window opening at 6:30 pm CST or 23:30 UTC. There are notices with possible dates until June 4, but there are currently only road closures for May 27,
28, and 29. Those road closures start at 10:30 am CST and go until 9:30 pm CST. It is very likely that with SpaceX not catching the Booster, the road could be open sooner than during past flights.

If SpaceX attempts to launch on May 27 but has an abort late in the countdown, it can try again the next day, assuming the issue isnt too major. Teams have upgraded the tank farm enough to recapture enough propellant
during detanking and hold more propellant. The ninth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Tuesday, May 27 https://t.co/Gufroc2kUz pic.twitter.com/nTc2x5NAlT

SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 23, 2025



Flight 10

After Ship 35 and Booster 14 comes Ship 36 and likely Booster 16, although the Booster for the next flight has yet to be confirmed. Once again, the objective for Flight 10 will depend on how Flight 9 goes. Currently, Ship 36 is getting its engines and could be rolled out for static fire testing
shortly after Flight 9.

Booster 16 is likely ready for a static fire, but it will have to wait for Pad As refurbishment after Flight 9 before completing one. If SpaceX decides to go with Booster 15 instead, it could be a little longer until it is ready. If Flight 9 goes well and Flight 10 is Ship 36 and Booster 16, it could be within a month or less after Flight 9.

Featured Image: Flight 9 Fullstack lead image by Max Evans ( @_mgde_)



The post Third Times the Charm? Starship Flight 9 appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/05/third-times-the-charm-starship-flight- 9/


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