SpaceX's giant Starship rocket is poised to head for space from South Texas.

SpaceX 的巨型 Starship 火箭准备从德克萨斯州南部飞往太空。

BOCA CHICA BEACH, Texas—Early Saturday morning, SpaceX will load more than 10 million pounds of super-cold methane and liquid oxygen into the propellant tanks inside the company's second flight-ready Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket.

得克萨斯州博卡奇卡海滩——周六清晨，SpaceX 将把超过 1000 万磅的超冷甲烷和液氧装入该公司第二个可飞行的超重型助推器和 Starship 火箭内的推进剂罐中。

Then, if all goes according to plan, 33 Raptor engines will light at 7 am CST (13:00 UTC) to propel this gigantic rocket into the sky over Boca Chica Beach, a remote stretch of South Texas shoreline a couple of miles north of the US-Mexico border. SpaceX will live stream the event on X.

然后，如果一切按计划进行，33 个猛禽发动机将在中部标准时间上午 7 点（世界标准时间 13:00）启动，将这枚巨大的火箭推向博卡奇卡海滩上空，博卡奇卡海滩是德克萨斯州南部海岸线以北几英里的一个偏远地区。美国和墨西哥边境。 SpaceX 将在 X 上直播该活动。

Space fans got what they hope will be their last look at this particular rocket Friday night, hours before law enforcement closed off public access to the launch site. One of the neat things about SpaceX's privately-owned South Texas launch site, named Starbase, is the public can approach within a few hundred feet of the rocket. The surrounding mud flats, dunes, and beach are all public land.

星期五晚上，太空迷们希望这是他们最后一次看到这枚特殊的火箭，就在执法部门关闭公众进入发射场的几个小时之前。 SpaceX 位于德克萨斯州南部的私营发射场 Starbase 的一大优点是，公众可以接近火箭几百英尺的范围。周围的泥滩、沙丘、海滩都是公共土地。

At government launch sites, such as Cape Canaveral, Florida, public access is generally restricted to guided tours. Even then, the closest most people can get to an active launch pad is about a mile, and much farther than that on launch days.

在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角等政府发射场，公众进入通常仅限于导游。即便如此，大多数人距离发射台最近的距离大约是一英里，比发射日远得多。

SpaceX delayed the Starship test flight from Friday to replace actuators on grid fins positioned near the top of the rocket's first stage. Ground teams removed the upper stage from the rocket Thursday to complete the repairs, then reinstalled the upper stage Friday morning to continue with launch preparations.

SpaceX 从周五推迟了 Starship 试飞，以更换位于火箭第一级顶部附近的网格鳍上的执行器。周四，地面团队从火箭上拆除了上级以完成维修，然后周五早上重新安装了上级，继续进行发射准备工作。

The test flight on tap Saturday, if fully successful, will put SpaceX on a path toward additional demonstrations, and perhaps the first operational Starship flights to carry Starlink Internet satellites into orbit. Eventually, SpaceX wants Starship to be the next-generation vehicle to replace and expand the capacity offered by the company's existing Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.

周六的试飞如果完全成功，将使 SpaceX 走上更多演示的道路，或许也是首次将星链互联网卫星送入轨道的星际飞船飞行。最终，SpaceX 希望 Starship 成为下一代运载工具，以取代和扩大该公司现有的 Falcon 9 火箭和 Dragon 飞船所提供的运载能力。

On Saturday, SpaceX's launch team will begin loading propellants into the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage a little more than 90 minutes before liftoff time. Thermal conditioning of the rocket's Raptor engines will start around 20 minutes prior to launch. In the final 10 seconds of the countdown, several hundred thousand gallons of water will flow through a deluge system to dampen the energy from the nearly simultaneous ignition of 33 Raptor engines at the bottom of the rocket.

周六，SpaceX 的发射团队将在升空前 90 分钟多一点开始将推进剂装入超重型助推器和星际飞船上级。火箭猛禽发动机的热调节将在发射前 20 分钟左右开始。在倒计时的最后 10 秒内，数十万加仑的水将流经雨淋系统，以抑制火箭底部 33 个猛禽发动机几乎同时点火所产生的能量。

If you're a space enthusiast, that's when the real fun begins. Here are five things to watch for on SpaceX's second full-scale Starship test flight.

如果您是太空爱好者，那么真正的乐趣才开始。以下是 SpaceX 第二次全尺寸星舰试飞中值得关注的五件事。

1. How will the launch pad hold up?

When the first Starship rocket launched April 20, it made a big mess. The blast from the Super Heavy booster's Raptor engines blew a hole in the concrete beneath the pedestal the rocket sits before launch. Massive chunks of concrete were strewn across hundreds of acres around the launch pad, denting tanks and carving craters in the surrounding mud flats. Clouds of dust and sand fell on communities several miles away.

1. 发射台将如何支撑？4 月 20 日第一枚 Starship 火箭发射时，弄得一团糟。超重型助推器猛禽发动机的爆炸在火箭发射前所在的基座下方的混凝土上炸出了一个洞。发射台周围数百英亩的土地上散落着大量混凝土块，使储罐凹陷，并在周围的泥滩上留下了弹坑。尘沙云落在几英里外的社区上。

This is something SpaceX doesn't want to repeat with the second test flight, so engineers installed a water deluge system at the pad to protect it from similar damage again. In the final seconds of the countdown, the deluge system will release up to 358,000 gallons of fresh water through channels built into a steel plate installed underneath the pad's circular launch mount. The fountain-like flow of water is supposed to absorb the heat and acoustic energy from the Super Heavy engines.

SpaceX 不想在第二次试飞中重复这种情况，因此工程师在发射台上安装了水淋系统，以保护其再次免受类似损坏。在倒计时的最后几秒，雨淋系统将通过安装在发射台圆形发射底座下方的钢板中内置的通道释放多达 358,000 加仑的淡水。喷泉般的水流应该吸收超重型发动机的热量和声能。

Other launch pads, including SpaceX's own launch facilities for the Falcon 9 rocket, use similar water deluge systems.

其他发射台，包括 SpaceX 自己的猎鹰 9 号火箭发射设施，都使用类似的水淋系统。

SpaceX tested the water deluge system several times since April, including on a pair of hold-down engine tests with the Super Heavy booster in August. The launch pad held up fine during those hot-fire tests, and we'll soon know if the deluge system does the job during a real launch.

自 4 月份以来，SpaceX 多次测试了水淋系统，其中包括 8 月份使用超重型助推器进行的两次压紧发动机测试。在这些热火测试中，发射台表现良好，我们很快就会知道雨淋系统在真正的发射过程中是否能发挥作用。

2. Will the Raptor engines do better this time?

At least five of the 33 Raptor engines failed on the Super Heavy booster when it flew for the first time in April. SpaceX will try to improve on that with the second test flight of the Super Heavy-Starship rocket.

2. 这次猛禽发动机会做得更好吗？超重型助推器4月份首飞时，33个猛禽发动机中至少有5个出现故障。 SpaceX 将尝试通过超重型星舰火箭的第二次试飞来改进这一点。

These engines each generate a half-million pounds of thrust, for a total of nearly 17 million pounds of thrust while the Super Heavy booster powers the rocket for the first two-and-a-half minutes of the flight. This is more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V rocket used for the Apollo Moon missions. SpaceX can afford to lose a handful of engines without any catastrophic effects on the test flight, but it would be nice if the rocket lost none.

这些发动机各自产生 50 万磅的推力，总计近 1700 万磅的推力，而超重型助推器则在飞行的前两分半钟为火箭提供动力。这是用于阿波罗登月任务的土星五号火箭推力的两倍多。 SpaceX 可以承受失去少量发动机的损失，而不会对试飞造成任何灾难性影响，但如果火箭没有损失任何发动机那就太好了。

In April, propellant leaks and fires in the booster's engine compartment severed connection with the rocket's primary flight computer, and the vehicle lost control a little more than two minutes into the flight. Shortly thereafter, a self-destruct mechanism activated to blow up the rocket.

4 月份，助推器发动机舱发生推进剂泄漏和起火，导致与火箭主飞行计算机的连接中断，飞行器在飞行两分钟多一点后失去控制。此后不久，自毁装置启动，炸毁了火箭。

For the second test flight, SpaceX technicians tightened bolts in fuel manifold connections on the Raptor engines to reduce the risk of leaks. They've also beefed up shielding between the engines to protect adjacent Raptors from an explosion on a neighboring engine. On future launches, Raptor engines will have redesigned fuel manifolds to fully address the part that is prone to leaks.

在第二次试飞中，SpaceX 技术人员拧紧了猛禽发动机燃料歧管连接处的螺栓，以降低泄漏风险。他们还加强了发动机之间的防护，以保护相邻的猛禽免受相邻发动机爆炸的影响。在未来的发布中，猛禽发动机将重新设计燃油歧管，以完全解决容易泄漏的部分。

"We do anticipate the Raptor engines will perform better for this test," said Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of NASA's Human Landing System program, which oversees a SpaceX contract to develop a human-rated lunar lander based on the Starship design. "By the time of the Human Landing System Starship, we will be on a much later generation of Raptor, thereby having the predictability of the engines that is required for human-rating of the Starship itself."

NASA 载人着陆系统项目经理丽莎·沃森-摩根 (Lisa Watson-Morgan) 表示：“我们确实预计猛禽发动机将在这次测试中表现更好。”该项目负责监督 SpaceX 的一份合同，该合同旨在开发基于星舰设计的载人月球着陆器。 “到人类登陆系统星际飞船的时候，我们将使用更新一代的猛禽，从而拥有对星际飞船本身进行人类评级所需的发动机的可预测性。”

The Super Heavy booster's steering system also has an upgrade debuting on the second test flight. This is a switch from a hydraulic thrust vector control mechanism to an electric one to gimbal, or pivot, thrust from the cluster of 13 Raptor engines at the center of the Super Heavy booster. The outer ring of 20 engines do not gimbal.

超重型助推器的转向系统也进行了升级，并在第二次试飞中首次亮相。这是从液压推力矢量控制机构到电动推力矢量控制机构的切换，以通过位于超重型助推器中心的 13 个猛禽发动机组提供万向节或枢轴推力。 20发动机外环没有万向节。

3. How will hot staging work?

Then, at 2 minutes and 41 seconds into the flight, there's another big moment. This is when the Super Heavy booster will switch off its engines and release from the Starship upper stage to climbing into space.

3. 热升迁将如何进行？然后，在飞行 2 分 41 秒时，又一个重要时刻到来。此时，超重型助推器将关闭发动机并从星舰上层释放并爬入太空。

The rocket flown on the April 20 test flight didn't make it this far before tumbling out of control. Assuming the rocket is still flying steady at this point, the Super Heavy booster will shut down most of its engines to start the stage separation sequence, followed by the physical disconnection of the stages at the exact moment the Raptor engines ignite on the upper stage. This "hot staging" technique, though novel for SpaceX, has been used on a number of Russian rockets for decades.

4月20日试飞的火箭没有飞到这么远就失控了。假设此时火箭仍稳定飞行，超重型助推器将关闭其大部分发动机以启动级分离序列，然后在上级猛禽发动机点火的同时，级间物理断开。这种“热分级”技术虽然对 SpaceX 来说很新颖，但几十年来已在许多俄罗斯火箭上使用。

Typically, rockets switch off their booster engines for a few seconds before jettisoning the first stage, and then lighting the upper stage a moment later. The upshot of the change is it increases the Starship’s payload lift capability, which already amounted to more than 100 metric tons to low Earth orbit. But it means engineers had to add shielding to the top of the stainless steel booster, which SpaceX wants to recover and reuse numerous times.

通常情况下，火箭会在放弃第一级之前关闭助推发动机几秒钟，然后稍后点燃上级。这一变化的结果是增加了星舰的有效载荷升力能力，该能力已经达到近地轨道超过 100 吨。但这意味着工程师必须在不锈钢助推器的顶部添加屏蔽层，SpaceX 希望多次回收和重复使用该不锈钢助推器。

One of the design changes required to implement hot staging is a new 6-foot extension to the top of the Super Heavy booster with vents to allow super-hot gas from the upper stage engines to safely flow out of the rocket’s structure “and not just blow itself up,” Musk said earlier this year. “This is the most risky thing, I think, for the next flight.”

实施热升级所需的设计变更之一是在超重型助推器顶部增加一个新的 6 英尺延伸部分，并带有通风口，以允许来自上级发动机的超热气体安全地流出火箭的结构，“而不仅仅是爆炸自己，”马斯克今年早些时候说道。 “我认为，对于下一次飞行来说，这是最危险的事情。”

"I think the probability of this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one," Musk continued. "Maybe it's like 60 percent. It depends on how well we do at stage separation.”

“我认为下一次飞行成功进入轨道的可能性比上一次要高得多，”马斯克继续说道。 “也许是 60%。这取决于我们在阶段分离方面做得如何。”

4. Can Starship fly in space?

SpaceX tested five Starship prototypes in 2020 and 2021 on high-altitude flights within the atmosphere, for the purpose of wringing out the company's concept on how to land the vehicle. These tests all ended in explosions until the last one on May 5, 2021, when a full-scale Starship upper stage safely landed after flying to an altitude of around 33,000 feet (10 kilometers).

4. Starship 能在太空中飞行吗？SpaceX 在 2020 年和 2021 年在大气层内的高空飞行中测试了 5 个 Starship 原型机，目的是敲定公司如何着陆的概念。这些测试都以爆炸告终，直到 2021 年 5 月 5 日最后一次测试，当时一艘全尺寸星舰上级在飞到约 33,000 英尺（10 公里）的高度后安全着陆。

These were dramatic events. SpaceX showed the Starship could descend back to Earth with a "belly flop" maneuver, then safely flip from horizontal to vertical orientation just before reaching the ground for a propulsive landing.

这些都是戏剧性的事件。 SpaceX 展示了星舰可以通过“腹部翻转”动作下降返回地球，然后在到达地面进行推进着陆之前安全地从水平翻转到垂直方向。

What those flights didn't do was test Starship in space. That could happen Saturday, assuming good performance from the Super Heavy booster. Starship's upper stage has six Raptor engines, three steerable engines in the center and three Raptors with larger fixed nozzles around the perimeter of the rocket. The three engines with larger nozzles are optimized for operation in the airless vacuum of space.

这些飞行没有做的是在太空中测试星舰。假设超重型助推器表现良好，这可能会在周六发生。星舰的上级有六个猛禽发动机，中间有三个可操纵的发动机，火箭周边有三个带有较大固定喷嘴的猛禽发动机。具有较大喷嘴的三台发动机针对在真空无气的太空中运行进行了优化。

These six Raptor engines will produce nearly twice the thrust of the booster stage of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. That's a lot of oomph for an upper stage. The flight profile for SpaceX's second full-scale Starship test flight, designated OFT-2 or IFT-2, calls for the six upper stage Raptor engines to burn for around six minutes, until shutting off at 8 minutes and 33 seconds into the mission, accelerating the rocket nearly to orbital velocity.

这六台猛禽发动机将产生近两倍于 SpaceX 主力猎鹰 9 号火箭助推级推力的推力。这对于上层舞台来说是很大的魅力。 SpaceX 第二次全尺寸星舰试飞（指定为 OFT-2 或 IFT-2）的飞行剖面要求六个上级猛禽发动机燃烧约六分钟，直到任务进行到 8 分 33 秒时关闭。将火箭加速到接近轨道速度。

But SpaceX has never tried to ignite Raptor engines in a space-like environment. The air pressure here is a tiny fraction of what it is at sea level. Several rockets have failed at ignition of their upper stages this year, including the inaugural flights of Japan's new H3 rocket and Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket. Will Starship continue the trend?

但SpaceX从未尝试过在类似太空的环境中点燃猛禽发动机。这里的气压只是海平面气压的一小部分。今年有几枚火箭的上级点火失败，包括日本新型 H3 火箭和 Relativity Space 的 Terran 1 火箭的首次飞行。 Starship会延续这一趋势吗？

5. Will the booster and ship make it back to Earth?

If everything goes perfectly, or close to it, Starship will coast through space for a little more than an hour. After initially heading east from South Texas over the Gulf of Mexico, Starship will fly over the Straits of Florida just north of Cuba, then over the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. SpaceX is intentionally not giving the rocket enough velocity to maintain a stable orbit, so Starship will reenter the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and target a predawn splashdown northwest of Hawaii.

5. 助推器和飞船能否返回地球？如果一切顺利或接近顺利，星际飞船将在太空中滑行一个多小时。星舰最初从德克萨斯州南部向东飞越墨西哥湾后，将飞越古巴北部的佛罗里达海峡，然后飞越大西洋、非洲和印度洋。 SpaceX 故意不让火箭有足够的速度来维持稳定的轨道，因此 Starship 将重新进入太平洋上空的大气层，并瞄准黎明前在夏威夷西北部溅落。

One side of the stainless steel Starship upper stage is covered with ceramic tiles to shield the rocket from the heat of reentry. There are fins on Starship to help guide it through the atmosphere before finally reaching the surface of the Pacific about 90 minutes after launching from Texas.

不锈钢星舰上级的一侧覆盖着瓷砖，以保护火箭免受再入时的热量影响。星舰上有鳍片，可以帮助引导它穿过大气层，然后从德克萨斯州发射大约 90 分钟后最终到达太平洋表面。

The Super Heavy booster will also attempt a controlled splashdown in the sea after falling away from the Starship upper stage. Its target will be a controlled water landing in the Gulf of Mexico around 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the Texas coast, using thrust from a subset of its Raptor engines to brake for splashdown.

超重型助推器在脱离星舰上层后还将尝试在海上受控溅落。其目标是在距德克萨斯州海岸约 20 英里（32 公里）的墨西哥湾进行受控水上着陆，利用猛禽发动机子集的推力进行制动以防止溅落。

These recovery experiments are akin to SpaceX's tests of the recovery system on the Falcon 9 booster in the mid-2010s. Those tests ended in a series of crash landings before the company successfully landed a Falcon 9 booster of the first time in 2015, five years after the first Falcon 9 launch.

这些回收实验类似于 SpaceX 在 2010 年代中期对猎鹰 9 号助推器上的回收系统进行的测试。这些测试以一系列紧急着陆结束，之后该公司于 2015 年（即猎鹰 9 号首次发射五年后）首次成功着陆了猎鹰 9 号助推器。

SpaceX eventually wants to land the Super Heavy booster and Starship vehicle back at their launch pad for inspections, refueling, and rapid reuse. For the rocket's experimental test flights, water landings will do.

SpaceX 最终希望将超重型助推器和星际飞船运回发射台进行检查、加油和快速重复使用。对于火箭的实验性测试飞行，水上着陆就可以了。