SpaceX 公佈了第三次 Starship 試飛的預計日期

SpaceX is aiming to get the mighty Starship rocket aloft again in February.

SpaceX 的目標是在二月讓強大的星艦火箭再次升空。

Speaking during a media teleconference earlier this week that was mainly for NASA to share updates to its Artemis program, Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, revealed that the Elon Musk-led company is aiming to have the Starship ready for flight this month and hoping to receive a flight permit from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the coming weeks.

本週早些時候，SpaceX 負責客戶營運和整合的副總裁傑西卡·詹森(Jessica Jensen) 在一次媒體電話會議上發表講話，該會議主要是讓NASA 分享其Artemis 計劃的最新進展，她透露，馬斯克(Elon Musk) 領導的公司的目標是讓Starship 做好準備本月飛行，並希望在未來幾週內獲得美國聯邦航空管理局（FAA）的飛行許可。

“We are working toward Starship flight test three right now,” Jensen said, adding that the SpaceX team at the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, has already static fired the first-stage Super Heavy booster as part of pre-flight testing.

Jensen 表示：「我們現在正在努力進行Starship 第三次飛行測試。」他補充說，作為飛行前測試的一部分，位於德克薩斯州博卡奇卡發射場的SpaceX 團隊已經靜態發射了第一級超重型助推器。

Commenting on the FAA’s work to grant flight permission, Jensen said: “We’re expecting that license to come in February, so it’s looking like flight three will occur in February of this year.”

詹森在評論美國聯邦航空局授予飛行許可的工作時表示：“我們預計該許可將在二月份發放，因此看起來第三次飛行將在今年二月進行。”

The Starship, which comprises the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft, packs a colossal 17 million pounds of thrust at launch, making it the most powerful rocket ever to have flown.

Starship 由超重型助推器和 Starship 太空船組成，在發射時可產生 1700 萬磅的巨大推力，使其成為有史以來最強大的火箭。

An uncrewed Starship launched for the first time in April last year but an anomaly a few minutes after liftoff forced mission controllers to blow it up. A second test flight in November saw the vehicle achieve stage separation for the first time, but again the Starship failed to reach orbit.

一艘無人駕駛的星艦於去年四月首次發射，但升空幾分鐘後出現異常，迫使任務控制人員將其炸毀。在 11 月的第二次試飛中，飛船首次實現了級分離，但星艦再次未能進入軌道。

Jensen said that the main aim of the next test mission is to increase the rocket’s performance and get the spacecraft to orbit.

詹森表示，下一次測試任務的主要目標是提高火箭的性能並將太空船送入軌道。

The long-term goal is to use the Starship flight system for transporting cargo and crew to the lunar surface, and possibly for the first human flights to Mars, too.

長期目標是利用星艦飛行系統將貨物和人員運送到月球表面，也可能用於人類首次飛往火星的飛行。

But plenty of testing is still required, including of the propellant transfer system that will enable the Starship spacecraft to complete its journeys.

但仍需要進行大量測試，包括使星艦飛船完成其旅程的推進劑傳輸系統。

Jensen touched on this during the teleconference when she said that although the propellant transfer system “sounds complex and scary,” SpaceX has “actually achieved almost all of the complex parts already on our operational programs, and it’s just going to be piecing them together for Starship.”

詹森在電話會議上談到了這一點，她說雖然推進劑傳輸系統“聽起來複雜而可怕”，但SpaceX“實際上已經實現了我們運營計劃中已經存在的幾乎所有復雜部分，而且只是將它們拼湊在一起以供使用。星艦。”

But first things first — SpaceX needs to prove that the Super Heavy rocket can lift the Starship spacecraft to orbit. It will hopefully get a third chance to achieve the feat as early as next month.

但首先要做的事情是——SpaceX 需要證明超重型火箭可以將 Starship 太空船送入軌道。它有望最早在下個月獲得第三次實現這項壯舉的機會。