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SpaceX has shared a list of upgrades that will fly on the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage Starship spacecraft as part of Starship Flight 7. The next Starship flight should lift off later this month, and the center of attention during the test will be the upper-stage Starship spacecraft. Flight 7 will be the first time SpaceX will fly an upgraded upper-stage ship with new forward (upper flaps), and in a post yesterday, the firm outlined other changes that will increase the rocket's mission duration and data collection capabilities.
SpaceX's Flight 7 Starship Upper Stage Will Feature Major Propulsion System Upgrades & New Flight Control Equipment
Ahead of Starship Flight 7, footage from local media shows that SpaceX has installed the flight termination system (FTS) explosives on the 232-foot-tall Starship Super Heavy booster. These explosives are a regulatory requirement on every rocket, and they provide teams on the ground to destroy the vehicle in case of an anomaly.
Around the same time that it installed the explosives, SpaceX also shared a host of upgrades for the booster and the ship set to fly on Flight 7. The firm outlined that it will reuse a Raptor engine for the first time on the Super Heavy. According to SpaceX, this engine flew on Starship Flight 5. Flight 5 was the first that saw the firm successfully catch the Super Heavy booster with the tower catch arms, allowing SpaceX to recover all of its engines free from water damage.
As expected, the upper-stage Starship will continue to test hardware to enable its tower catch. According to SpaceX, it will add "non-structural versions of ship catch fittings . . .to test the fittings’ thermal performance" during reentry. SpaceX will install these fittings on the side of the rocket, and they might pave the way for the first ship catch in Starship Flight 8.
The catch hardware won't be the only change on the upper-stage Starship for Flight 7. The biggest upgrades to the new rockets are their avionics and propulsion systems. Starting from the latter, SpaceX shares that new feed lines, feed line insulation, and "a 25 percent increase in propellant volume" improve the rocket's performance and flight duration.
This year, SpaceX will also have to test in-orbit fuel transfer to complete a key milestone for NASA's Artemis Human Landing System (HLS) lunar lander. On this front, upgraded avionics, or flight control equipment, on the upper-stage will use a more powerful computer and an improved power distribution system. The ship will also feature more than 30 cameras to aid engineers in evaluating its performance.
Additionally, Starship Flight 7 will mark the first time that the upper stage deploys payload while in space. These are Starlink simulators designed to mimic SpaceX's low-Earth-orbit (LEO) internet satellites. Starship is key to Starlink's future, as its larger capacity over the workhorse Falcon 9 rockets is essential to deploying the second-generation satellites.
As with Flight 6, Starship Flight 7 will also include an in-orbit Raptor ignition. SpaceX has added radar sensors and other hardware to the launch tower to improve its performance and increase reliability.
FTS (Flight Termination System) explosives are being installed on Booster 14 tonight for Starship test flight 7. An exciting pre-launch miletone that signals a launch is occuring soon.
1/3/25 pic.twitter.com/6LU2Bodskv
— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) January 3, 2025
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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