And it has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster — the bottom part of the rocket — has 33 of SpaceX’s powerful Raptor engines sticking out of its bottom. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad in South Texas, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.
The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from a science fiction movie from the 1950s and is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.
What happened during the previous flight?
President-elect Donald J. Trump attended the sixth test flight on Nov. 19, visiting Mr. Musk in the launch control room. The upper Starship flew on a suborbital trajectory halfway around the world, successfully re-entered the atmosphere and performed a landing maneuver, flipping to a vertical position before gently splashing down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff.
Not unexpectedly, it then tipped over and exploded.
-The booster also successfully re-entered the atmosphere. But plans to catch it — a feat that SpaceX accomplished during the fifth test flight — were called off after sensors on the mechanical arms were damaged during launch. The booster was diverted to the Gulf of Mexico.
What was different about the seventh flight?
For the Starship on this seventh test flight, significant design changes were made to the propulsion, the heat shield and the control systems. The rocket had been stretched several feet taller than earlier Starships — space for bigger tanks that hold 25 percent more propellant. The flaps near the top of Starship were smaller and had been moved toward the tip to reduce damage from the searing temperatures of re-entry.
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