SpaceX Starship goes full-stack ahead of Flight 5

SpaceX has mounted the Starship over the booster in a full stack for the upcoming Flight 5 test, which could happen on Sunday. The company announced this move on Friday on social media site X and shared some photographs of the full stack.

Meanwhile, FAA approval for this flight remains pending and no confirmation has been made on this matter.

Last month, SpaceX said that the FAA speculated the Flight 5 approval in November.  The space rocket maker has been standing Starship ready for launch since August and expecting a launch somewhere in September.

While waiting for the approval, SpaceX teams on Boca Chica Starbase have been doing an important exercise to achieve a massive milestone. Starship is designed as a reusable rocket and both stages are being tested to achieve this aim.

In the past four tests, this rocket program has accomplished full-power engine ignition, liftoff, hot-staging, orbit insertion, and reentry.

SpaceX Starship Full Stack at Boca Chica Starbase Texas (Source – SpaceX)

The fourth flight was the most successful among previous tests. The booster stage has performed a clean splash landing in the sea in the target area.

This objective is important to recover the first stage after hot-staging and returning the core via landing trajectory.

For Starship, SpaceX has designed this giant tower called Mechazilla. As the name suggests, this tower has robotic arms and designed to close and catch the booster as its final burn fades.

The on-ground team has continuously tested these robotic arms for the past two months. In that way, several optimizations are made in height, opening and closing radius, and arm speed.

The license delay has allowed the company to fully understand the mechanism around the launch tower and how to maneuver the booster to fall right into the landing zone.

This will be the first time SpaceX will try to recover Starship’s first stage. On the other hand, we’ll some new actions on the reentry phase for the upper stage as it chases high heat and tries to splash down on the right location.