Elon Musk‘s rocket manufacturing company SpaceX is looking to deploy 10 model Starlink satellites during the upcoming test flight of its Starship launch vehicle in a bid to demonstrate its capabilities in the satellite launch segment, the company said on Friday.
What Happened: The 10 Starlink simulators, the company said, will be similar in size and weight to the company’s next generation of Starlink satellites.
While SpaceX has conducted 6 test flights of its ambitious launch vehicle to date, none of them carried any payload. The last test flight of Starship was in November.
Other Aims For Upcoming Flight Test: For the upcoming flight, the company is also looking to catch the vehicle’s booster back at the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, with the launch tower’s metallic arms like on its fifth test flight in October. However, in case of any safety concerns, the company will splash it down in the Gulf of Mexico, it said.
Catching the booster of the two-stage vehicle as well as the spacecraft back at the launch tower at Starbase is an important demonstration of the vehicle's reusability.
The spacecraft, however, is slated to be splashed down in the Indian Ocean on the upcoming test.
Why It Matters: The next flight test of Starship, Musk said last month, is expected on January 10th.
The Starship is still in development and undergoing testing. While NASA is looking forward to landing humans back on the surface of the Moon after a gap of over 50 years with the help of a custom version of the Starship, Musk dreams of taking humans to the planet Mars aboard the vehicle.
The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
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