SpaceX 公布了第三次 Starship 试飞的预计日期

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

SpaceX 的目标是在二月份让强大的星舰火箭再次升空。

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.

本周早些时候，SpaceX 负责客户运营和集成的副总裁杰西卡·詹森 (Jessica Jensen) 在一次媒体电话会议上发表讲话，该会议主要是让 NASA 分享其 Artemis 计划的最新进展，她透露，埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 领导的公司的目标是让 Starship 做好准备本月飞行，并希望在未来几周内获得美国联邦航空管理局（FAA）的飞行许可。

“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：“我们现在正在努力进行 Starship 第三次飞行测试。”他补充说，作为飞行前测试的一部分，位于德克萨斯州博卡奇卡发射场的 SpaceX 团队已经静态发射了第一级超重型助推器。

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.”

詹森在评论美国联邦航空局授予飞行许可的工作时表示：“我们预计该许可将在二月份发放，因此看起来第三次飞行将在今年二月进行。”

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 航天器组成，在发射时可产生 1700 万磅的巨大推力，使其成为有史以来最强大的火箭。

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.

一艘无人驾驶的星舰于去年四月首次发射，但升空几分钟后出现异常，迫使任务控制人员将其炸毁。在 11 月的第二次试飞中，飞船首次实现了级分离，但星舰再次未能进入轨道。

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，下一次测试任务的主要目标是提高火箭的性能并将航天器送入轨道。

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.

长期目标是利用星舰飞行系统将货物和人员运送到月球表面，也可能用于人类首次飞往火星的飞行。

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

但仍需要进行大量测试，包括使星舰飞船完成其旅程的推进剂传输系统。

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.”

詹森在电话会议上谈到了这一点，她说虽然推进剂传输系统“听起来复杂而可怕”，但 SpaceX“实际上已经实现了我们运营计划中已经存在的几乎所有复杂部分，而且只是将它们拼凑在一起以供使用。星舰。”

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 需要证明超重型火箭可以将 Starship 航天器送入轨道。它有望最早在下个月获得第三次实现这一壮举的机会。