星舰第14飞拟9月28日首入轨并部署星链V3

SpaceX is now targeting Starship Flight 14 no earlier than Monday, September 28, pending regulatory approval. The flight is planned as Starship’s first orbital mission. If that flight goes well, Flight 15 becomes the first realistic opening for a ship catch and, in the best case, a double catch. Flight 16 remains the best-case first launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, with this mission now internally cited as launching from 39A, according to KSC workers. After 13 suborbital tests, SpaceX intends to place Ship 41 into a sustained orbit at about 275 kilometers, complete roughly six revolutions over nearly 10 hours, deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and then deorbit for a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile. Super Heavy Booster 21 is not scheduled for a tower catch. Its job is boostback, a landing burn, and a controlled splashdown in the Gulf, with hardware and software changes meant to improve engine filtering and relight reliability after Flight 13. Orbit, payload deployment, and a controlled reentry are the immediate gates, and later flights will be judged against those results. Over on the East Coast, pad work at the Kennedy Space Center is already aligned with that sequence. The historic LC-39A was originally built in the 1960s for Saturn V, sent Apollo 4 off the pad in November 1967, and launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. Twelve of the 13 Saturn V missions that flew used the LC-39 complex. Saturn V (SA-511) launches Apollo 16 to the Moon from KSC 39A, April 16, 1972.#SaturnSaturday pic.twitter.com/9IxoIIU3hr — NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) January 1, 2022 The same pad later supported 82 of 135 Space Shuttle flights before Atlantis closed the era in 2011. NASA leased the site to SpaceX in 2014 via a deal brokered by Space Florida. Falcon 9 first flew from 39A on CRS-10 in February 2017, Falcon Heavy debuted there in 2018, and Crew Dragon Demo-2 returned crew launch to the pad on May 30, 2020. Starship is the next vehicle assigned to that historic launch site. Major construction at 39A now appears complete. The tank farm was active on three days this week, and on September 8 every major vent was in use as the farm stored, subcooled, and pumped LN2, LOX, and methane to the pad for testing and launch operations. On the tower, the left chopstick actuator was removed September 1 and reinstalled September 10. Those actuators let the arms move independently for stacking and catching, and SpaceX’s newer chopsticks use ele…