While you purchase thru hyperlinks on our articles, Long term and its syndication companions would possibly earn a fee.Credit score: SpaceXSpaceX is gearing up for the 7th verify flight of its Starship megarocket, which might happen in only a month or so.The corporate carried out a static-fire verify with Flight 7’s Tremendous Heavy first-stage booster nowadays (Dec. 9), in brief igniting its 33 Raptor engines at a pad at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas.The corporate documented the milestone on X nowadays, posting 3 pictures and a brief video of the verify.aerial view of a giant silver rocket firing its engines on a release mountSpaceX has no longer but introduced a release date for Starship’s 7th verify flight, however the corporate seems to be eyeing Jan. 11; an e mail despatched via NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Management identifies that date as the objective. (Consistent with that e mail, NASA plans to deploy a Gulfstream V jet to look at the impending flight.)Similar: What is subsequent for SpaceX’s Starship after its a hit sixth verify flight?Starship is composed of 2 stainless steel levels, either one of which might be designed to be absolutely and abruptly reusable. The higher degree is a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft referred to as Starship, or simply Send.When Send is stacked atop Tremendous Heavy, Starship stands about 400 toes (122 m) tall — larger that another rocket in historical past. Starship may be probably the most tough launcher ever constructed, boasting just about two times the liftoff thrust of NASA’s Area Release Gadget moon rocket.closeup of the bottom of a verify stand the place a rocket is being fired, with flames licking the stand’s legsRELATED STORIES:— Starship and Tremendous Heavy defined— SpaceX more likely to get FAA acclaim for 25 Starship launches in 2025— SpaceX’s Starship booster used to be ‘1 2nd away’ from aborting epic launch-tower catchStarship’s six verify flights to this point befell in April and November of 2023 and March, June, October and November of this 12 months.The megarocket has carried out slightly smartly, particularly on its ultimate two missions. On every instance, each Tremendous Heavy and Send made it to house as deliberate and survived their go back and forth backtrack to Earth in a single piece.aerial view of a giant silver rocket firing its engines on a release mountAnd, on Flight 5, Tremendous Heavy returned safely to its release tower, which stuck the booster the usage of its “chopstick” hands — the tactic SpaceX plans to make use of in the end for each Tremendous Heavy and Send, to make reflight as fast and environment friendly as conceivable.SpaceX aimed to copy the booster catch on Flight 6, however communique problems with the tower scuttled that check out, and Tremendous Heavy diverted to splash down within the Gulf of Mexico.