Sept 15 (Reuters) – SpaceX said on Tuesday it was preparing to launch its next Starship flight test as soon as September 22, a mission expected to send the vehicle into orbit for the first time and deploy Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s 14th test flight would mark a major leap in the rocket’s development over its last test in July, which flew a suborbital trajectory that took the spacecraft into space before returning it to Earth without completing an orbit.
The company plans to place Starship into orbit around Earth, a milestone that would allow it to test the vehicle over a longer-duration flight and deploy the first batch of Starlink V3 satellites.
The mission, pending regulatory approval, is expected to last nearly 10 hours, with Starship flying about 275 km above Earth and completing about six orbits before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
SpaceX plans to test the booster’s launch, separation, boostback and splashdown procedures, advancing the company toward its goal of a fully reusable orbital launch system.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
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