SpaceX aiming to launch eighth Starship Friday

BOCA CHICA, Texas (ValleyCentral) — SpaceX announced it is aiming to launch its eighth Starship rocket as early as Friday.

Last week, ValleyCentral announced that Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino ordered the temporary closure of State Highway 4 due to anticipated SpaceX testing.

Here are the dates he approved for potential space flight in Cameron County as of Monday morning.

As previously reported by ValleyCentral, Starship's seventh rocket flight test ended before reaching its destination.

"Lessons learned are being applied to future vehicles to make them more reliable," SpaceX stated on X about its last launch.

Last month's rocket blew up in the air, showering Turks and Caicos with debris.

After the anomaly, the Federal Aviation Administration required SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation.

To learn more about the lessons learned from SpaceX's seventh launch, see its report here.

The eighth flight test is aiming for Feb. 28, pending regulatory approval.

The upcoming flight aims to target Starship’s first payload deployment and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch.

The flight also includes the launch, return, and catch of the Super Heavy booster. Additionally during this flight, SpaceX aims to will deploy four Starlink simulators as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission.

"The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry," SpaceX stated in its flight goal description. "A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned."

Starship's upper stage return to the launch site is another focus of this test flight.

"A significant number of tiles have been removed from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle," the SpaceX release stated. "Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, non-structural versions of Starship’s catch fittings are installed to test the fittings’ thermal performance, along with a section of the tile line receiving a smoothed and tapered edge to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. Starship’s reentry profile is designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the upper stage’s rear flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure."

As previously accomplished, SpaceX will attempt to catch the vehicle with its tower chopsticks.

To watch the eighth launch, stay up to date with the latest on LabPadre.