These are the Voyages …

Following a test-firing of the Raptor rocket engines by which its Super Heavy booster is powered, SpaceX is making ready to fly its storied, much-anticipated, oft-delayed, incontestably impressive Starship in earnest.

The 09 February test-firing was a near-complete success insomuch as it met engineers’ requisite run-time duration and saw 31 of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 rocket engines ignite and throttle-up nominally.

The critical test was conducted one day after SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell announced the company would not only conduct the test-firing but also make an orbital flight attempt the following month. SpaceX founder and undisputed big-cheese Elon Musk subsequently reiterated Shotwell's timeline.

Speaking at Orlando’s Space Mobility Conference on Tuesday, 21 February, SpaceX  senior advisor for national security space solutions Gary Henry called the 09 test-firing “really the last box to check.”

“The vehicle’s in good shape,” Mr. Henry asserted. “The pad’s in good shape—pretty much all of the prerequisites that come to supporting an orbital demonstration attempt here in the next month or so look good.”

Should Starship perform to SpaceX’s expectations, the immense vehicle, upon reaching Earth orbit, will earn the distinction of being the most powerful rocket ever to do so—besting the 8.8-million-thrust-pounds of NASA’s storied and splendid Saturn V moon-rocket by a staggering 198.87%. Readers disinclined to spontaneous calculation will note the Starship’s total power output is slightly north of 17.5-million thrust-pounds.

To the subject of a Starship launch date, Mr. Henry set forth: “The FAA has a role here, right, so there is a launch license that is required and we hope to secure that license in the near future, and I think there is some Musk TV in our future here probably in the month of March, and I would encourage all of you to tune in when that time comes,”

Should the FAA abandon bureaucratic pedantry and produce the necessary licenses in a timely manner, NASA’s calendar indicates the long-awaited launch of Starship and its Super Heavy Booster could take place on 11 March 2023.

Following lift-off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas Starbase facility, the profile to which the upcoming flight is to play-out looks to have the primary Starship vessel separate from the Super Heavy booster over the Gulf of Mexico and continue to orbit. Returning to Earth via a controlled descent, the Super Heavy booster will land on an oceanic barge as the primary Starship completes its ascent, and commences orbiting the Earth. Upon completing a predetermined but undisclosed number of orbits, Starship will reenter the planet’s atmosphere and splash-down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

As SpaceX’s Starship program goes, so goes NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks to return humans to the moon’s surface by 2025. SpaceX was awarded the Human Landing System contract for both the Artemis III and IV missions, the former of which will attempt the first human lunar-landing since Apollo 17 touched down on the southeastern rim of the moon’s Serenitatis Basin in 1972. Upon reaching lunar orbit, two of NASA’s four Artemis III astronauts will leave the Orion spacecraft and embark a docked version of Starship, which will carry them to a landing near the lunar south pole. Ostensibly.

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.spacex.com