With a fully stacked Starship system on the launchpad at Starbase, SpaceX is preparing for the next round of tests for its fully reusable launch system ahead of its debut orbital launch attempt as soon as later this year. The new test campaign begins as Starship itself gains another announced crew flight to the Moon, this time for 10 paying passengers on a lunar free return trajectory excursion. Starship testing at Boca The new round of launch readiness testing kicked off in earnest with the stacking of Booster 7 onto the Orbital Launch Mount (OLM) on Monday, Oct. 10. This was followed on Oct. 12 by stacking Ship 24 on top of the Super Heavy booster ahead of what was anticipated to be a battery of fuelling tests to prepare for a static fire test series of the Booster’s 33 Raptor 2 engines. However, stacking operations did not go entirely to plan, with observers noting a shift in the Booster as Ship 24 was placed atop it. The fact that there was an issue was confirmed the following day, Oct. 13, when SpaceX workers performed a partial destack of the rocket and sent workers up the tower, across…
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Starship set for full stack fueling test ahead of static fire campaign
