Starship Flight 7 will attempt satellite deployment test

The seventh flight test of SpaceX’s Starship is scheduled for Wednesday (Jan. 15). The launch window will open at 5:00 p.m. EST. The upcoming flight will launch a new generation Starship with significant upgrades.

The highlight of the mission will be Starship's first attempt to deploy test satellites in space. The vehicle will also carry multiple reentry experiments geared towards ship catch and reuse. The mission will also include the recovery of the Super Heavy booster after liftoff.

Vehicle Upgrades

The Starship upper stage will debut a series of upgrades on this flight test, “bringing major improvements to reliability and performance,” SpaceX said in a mission update.

“The vehicle’s forward flaps have been reduced in size and shifted towards the vehicle tip and away from the heat shield, significantly reducing their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling.”

Redesigns to the propulsion system include a 25% increase in propellant volume.

The ship’s heat shield will also use the latest generation tiles and includes a backup layer for protection from missing or damaged tiles.

The vehicle’s avionics underwent a complete redesign, adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to the launch site. Avionics upgrades included a more powerful flight computer.

Video During Flight

With a link to the company’s Starlink satellite network, Starship is capable of streaming real-time high-definition video and telemetry in every phase of flight.

While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation satellites for the network. This will be the first exercise of a test satellite deployment mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean.

Starship will also attempt to refire a single Raptor engine while in space.

The ship’s reentry profile is being designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure.

Super Heavy Booster Upgrades

The launch system will continue to demonstrate its reusability. The Super Heavy booster for Flight Test 7 will reuse a Raptor engine from the booster launched on Flight Test 5.

Hardware upgrades to the launch tower will increase the reliability of catching the Super Heavy booster when it returns to the launch site. During the last Super Heavy Booster mission, sensors on the tower were damaged at launch resulting in the booster performing a landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch of the Super Heavy booster, requiring healthy systems on the booster and tower and a final manual command from the mission’s Flight Director,” SpaceX said. “If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The returning booster will be slowing down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone.