Washington—On its upcoming test flight, which could take place as early as January 10, SpaceX intends to test several improvements to its Starship vehicle and carry out the first payload deployments from it.
In a statement released on January 3, SpaceX described its plans for the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle’s seventh test flight. It supported the company’s earlier statements that the flight would be the first in a series of upgrades to the Starship’s upper deck.
The company said, “The next flight test will launch a new generation ship with major upgrades, try Starship’s first payload deployment test, fly multiple reentry experiments aimed at ship catch and reuse, and launch and return the Super Heavy booster.”
Among the improvements to Starship are enlarged propellant tanks with a 25% increase in volume over the previous design and modifications to the forward flap design to lower heating. Along with new computers, antennas, and a power distribution system, the vehicle also features a “complete redesign” of its avionics.
With “latest generation” tiles and a layer underneath that will offer protection in the event of damaged or missing tiles, the vehicle’s thermal protection system has undergone additional modifications. The vehicle will test various metallic tile options, some of which incorporate water cooling, while other tiles will be purposefully removed to stress-test vulnerable areas. These and other modifications are meant to get ready for upcoming flights in which SpaceX plans to try to land the upper stage of the Starship back at the launch location.
According to that report, the V3 Starlink satellites, which weigh roughly two tons each and are made especially to launch on Starship, will have an uplink capacity of 160 gigabits per second, which is 24 times that of V2 Mini satellites, and a downlink capacity of one terabit per second, which is 10 times that of the V2 Mini Starlink satellites that SpaceX currently launches. Additionally, each V3 satellite will have a backhaul capacity of almost four terabits per second using both laser and radiofrequency links.
A launch date was not provided by SpaceX in their announcement regarding the upcoming Starship flight. However, from January 10 to January 16, airspace restrictions for launch opportunities are published every day. With the exception of a morning launch on January 11, those launches would occur in the late afternoon.
