Starship Flight 9: SpaceX shows off Ship 35 heading for testing

SpaceX showed off some new aerial footage of Ship 35, the next Starship segment that will fly to space, or at least attempt to, in SpaceX’s Starship program. We’re still waiting on concrete evidence of when Starship Flight 9 will fly, but some recent testing could give a hint.

Ship 35 will be the next Block 2 Starship to fly and hopefully complete its suborbital test flight. SpaceX showed off the nearly completed vehicle moving around Starbase‘s production site on its test stand that is used for static fires over at the old Massey’s Gun Range.

Ship 35 spent a few days out at Massey’s completing two static fires. The first was a single-engine static fire simulating the in-orbit test burn SpaceX has been wanting to complete. This has been a test that has eluded SpaceX for a while as it was supposed to be completed on the older Block 1 vehicles but was aborted and removed from the test campaign. During Flights 7 and 8, the flights concluded before the test could be completed.

SpaceX shared that the static fire was successful.

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While the static fire helps teams practice the burn’s process, SpaceX will still have to wait for the single engine firing to be successful in space for it to be considered a success. This in-orbit burn is important as it’s a step to ensure Starship can safely deorbit itself once SpaceX begins orbital flights.

Ship 35’s second static fire was a 30-second burn of all six of its Raptor engines. We’ve seen these completed in varying durations before all of Starship’s flights. Flight 8’s ship saw a one-minute burn to further shake out what caused Flight 7’s failure. That obviously didn’t work, so Flight 9 gets a 30-second burn.

While Raptor 2 engines tend to end pretty energetically, Ship 35’s test seemed to be more violent than expected, and SpaceX hasn’t shared if the test was a success or not, which usually indicates something didn’t go as planned. However, that is just speculation, and there could be a variety of answers for the test:

1. Nothing went wrong and SpaceX just didn’t share an update
2. The test was to recreate the inflight failures of Flight 7 and/or 8
3. There was a minor failure during shutdown
4. SpaceX found a new major failure

While we hope that the speculations are wrong and the test was a success, if the outcome was anything other than the three options, that would likely mean more delays to the Starship Flight 9 launch. Right now, warnings to mariners and pilots show a potential launch in the second half of May. However, those windows are large and could easily be moved into June.

We’ll have to wait on official word from SpaceX, a closure of the FAA investigation into Flight 8, and more closures of airspace, roads, and Boca Chica Beach to get a firm launch date.