SpaceX's Starship becomes most powerful active rocket for 10 seconds during recent test

SpaceX successfully conducted a static fire test of its Super Heavy Starship booster and ignited 14 of its engines for the first time ever. The test was conducted at 12:21 am IST on November 15 at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas and it briefly made Starship the most powerful active rocket for a few seconds. Static fire is the testing stage where a rocket engine is ignited while the booster is fixated on the ground.

Reacting to a video of the test, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted, "Test went well" with a follow-up tweet that read, "Full test duration of 14 engines". The Super Heavy Booster is equipped with 33 upgraded Raptor 2 engines, each of which can generate a peak thrust of 230 tons, Teslarati reported. During the static fire that lasted ten seconds, the Booster generated 3,220 tons of thrust which translates to 7.1 million pounds of propulsion power.

Notably, Starship, which stands 394 feet (120m) tall is a two-stage rocket the first of which is the Super Heavy Booster and the second is the Ship which has six Raptor 2 engines. When all of its 33 engines will be fired for the debut launch, it would generate a whopping 16.7 million pounds of thrust during lift-off.

The recent test made Starship the most powerful active rocket, and it was just a little short of Saturn V's peak strength. The Saturn V rocket is what was used by NASA to send astronauts to the Moon during the Apollo program and it generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust during launch. What's also worth noting is that NASA's Space Launch System (SLS rocket) which will liftoff during Artemis 1 mission has a peak thrust capacity of 8.8 million pounds, but it has not flown before, making Super Heavy the top performer. 

Starship could launch by December

During a meeting on October 31, NASA's Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for Artemis Program, said that the agency is keeping track of Starship, which could launch by December this year. He revealed that the rocket would liftoff from Boca Chica, SpaceX’s facility in Texas, and almost immediately reenter for a splashdown near Hawaii. It will, however, not complete one full orbit in its orbital flight.