Starship Flight 8: Booster 15 completes static fire

SpaceX successfully static-fired the booster to be used for the flight of Starship Flight 8. The booster was rolled out Saturday after spending a few weeks in the MegaBay receiving its 33 Raptor engines.

SpaceX shared an update Saturday that Booster 15, the next flight-ready Starship Super Heavy Booster, was rolling out of its production facility and down the road to its launch pad. The booster will be used to launch the eighth test flight of Starship.

The photo showed the vast improvements SpaceX has made to its facility in South Texas since the Starship program began tests in the area back in 2018. During the days of Starhopper, Starbase was mostly just a dirt patch, a tent, and two concrete pads.

Starbase is now a fully fledged rocket factory, especially with the complete Starfactory pumping out Starship segments almost daily.

Sunday afternoon, SpaceX announced a successful static fire of Booster 15, firing up its Raptor engines. The company hasn’t announced if the static fire was successful or not, but it appeared to be good from the outside looking in.

This is the first test in a final series to get both the booster and upper stage ship ready for launch. Ship 34 has completed its cryogenic proof tests over at SpaceX’s Massey’s test site and is back in MegaBay 2 receiving its engines. While boosters complete their static fires at the launch pad, ships return to Massy’s, where they have a smaller test stand featuring a flame trench.

There’s no word yet on when Starship Flight 8 will launch. We are still awaiting the results of the mishap investigation into what caused Flight 7’s inflight failure. The FAA is also investigating debris falling outside Starship’s designated hazard zones. It has already reported that debris falling over the Turks and Caicos Islands caused minor damage to a car.

Elon Musk has stated that a delay past February is unlikely, and with Booster 15 nearing completion, we could be just a few weeks away from Flight 8’s launch.