SpaceX Fires Up Starship Rocket Ahead of 9th Test Flight (Photo)
SpaceX test-fires a Starship upper stage ahead of Starship's upcoming ninth test flight. SpaceX shared this photo via X on May 1, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX is moving forward with preparations for the ninth test flight of its massive Starship rocket.
Earlier this week, the company conducted a “static fire” test of the rocket’s upper stage at its Starbase facility in South Texas. During the test, SpaceX ignited one of the six Raptor engines on the 52-meter-tall (171-foot) Starship vehicle. The company shared a photo and a short video clip of the test on X (formerly Twitter), describing it as a “space burn.”
Starship, which is being readied for its ninth test flight, successfully completed this single-engine static fire, showing what the company referred to as an in-space burn simulation.
According to NASASpaceflight.com, SpaceX also ran a static fire test of all six engines on the upper stage on Thursday. However, the company hasn’t officially posted about that test yet.
Standing at 123 meters tall (403.5 feet), Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of two fully reusable stages: a massive booster known as Super Heavy and an upper stage simply called Starship, or “Ship” for short. Both stages are powered by SpaceX’s new Raptor engines—six on the Ship and 33 on Super Heavy.
Starship has flown eight test missions so far, two of which took place this year. Flight 7 and Flight 8, launched on January 16 and March 6 respectively, were both considered partial successes. In both flights, the Super Heavy booster completed its tasks and returned to Starbase, where the launch tower’s giant arms attempted to catch it.
Unfortunately, the upper stage exploded less than ten minutes into both missions, scattering debris across parts of the flight path, including the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas.
For the upcoming Flight 9, SpaceX plans to reuse the Super Heavy booster from Flight 7. Last month, the company performed a static fire test of this booster in preparation for the next launch. The booster will reuse 29 of the 33 Raptor engines that previously flew on Flight 7.
