{"id":115779,"date":"2020-11-12T12:22:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T20:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/spacexs-starship-sn8-roars-to-life-ahead-of-debut-launch"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:22:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T20:22:41","slug":"spacexs-starship-sn8-roars-to-life-ahead-of-debut-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/spacexs-starship-sn8-roars-to-life-ahead-of-debut-launch","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX\u2019s Starship SN8 roars to life ahead of debut launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacexs-starship-sn8-roars-to-life-ahead-of-debut-launch.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Featured Image Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/austinbarnard45\">@austinbarnard45<\/a> via Twitter SpaceX\u2019s Starship SN8 (Serial Number 8) prototype roared to life last night during a Raptor engine static-fire test. This test is a routine pre-flight preparation meant to assess the three Raptor engines and all systems related to the propulsion system before a launch vehicle takes flight. SN8 is expected to become the first fully-assembled Starship prototype to perform a test flight. Engineers plan to launch Starship SN8 50,000 feet (15-kilometers) into Boca Chica Beach, Texas, sunny sky. Tuesday\u2019s static-fire test was the second one performed. Raptor engines are fueled by a combination of cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen. During the test, engineers fuel the vehicke to briefly ignite the Raptors as the stainless-steel Starship SN8 vehicle remained grounded to a test stand at the South Texas Launch Facility. Last night\u2019s engine ignition was different than the previous one; This time, SN8 featured a top nose cone section with an oxygen header tank. The vehicle\u2019s first static-firing only featured the bottom base and excluded a test of the header propellant tanks. On October 20, teams performed the first static-firing in which the Starship SN8\u2019s three Raptor engines where briefly ignited for the first time, utilizing fuel from the main propellant tank. Starship features two propellant tanks \u2014 a main one that holds most of the propellant and a \u2018header tank\u2019 that is a smaller tank that holds fuel reserves that can fuel the vehicle upon landing. A header tank for liquid oxygen is also located inside the vehicle\u2019s top nose cone section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Featured Image Source: @austinbarnard45 via Twitter SpaceX\u2019s Starship SN8 (Serial Number 8) prototype roared to life last night during a Raptor engine static-fire test. This test is a routine pre-flight preparation meant to assess the three Raptor engines and all systems related to the propulsion system before a launch vehicle takes flight. SN8 is expected [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}