SpaceX fueled up its fully stacked Starship for the first time ever on Monday, checking off another huge testing milestone ahead of the rocket’s first orbital flight test.
The success of Monday’s test keeps this Starship vehicle — consisting of a Super Heavy booster, called Booster 7, and the Ship 24 upper stage — on track for its inaugural flight as soon as next month.
That mission will launch from the company’s Texas facility, Starbase, sending Ship 24 around Earth once before its planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
Monday’s test, known as a wet dress rehearsal, is a flight-like test where engineers fill the rocket with fuel as they would on launch day. The vehicle’s engines are briefly fired, and then data collected during the test is analyzed to determine how the rocket’s systems are functioning.
According to SpaceX, “the test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations.”
The company also said that this was the first time an integrated Starship and Booster were fully loaded with propellant. After more than 10 million pounds of fuel — liquid oxygen and liquid methane — was loaded, the 395-foot-tall (120 meters) Starship ran through many of the procedures it will perform on launch day.
A few weeks ago, SpaceX shared some pretty impressive photos of its massive Starship stacked on the launch pad. The behemoth is under construction in South Texas and SpaceX has big plans for it, once it’s finished.
The rocket, which has yet to reach orbit, consists of two components: a massive first stage booster called the “Super Heavy” and an upper stage known as “Starship.” And, as per usual for SpaceX, both aspects of the craft are designed to be fully reusable.
Recent filings with the government show that SpaceX has requested a launch license, good from January to July, for an orbital flight test of its Starship.
But before that can happen, SpaceX still needs to check a few more key boxes, including a test firing of all 33 of Booster 7’s Raptor engines. SpaceX successfully fired up all six of Ship 24 Raptors last fall, and announced it will now destack the vehicle in order to test fire Booster 7’s engines simultaneously.