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SpaceX has shared a list of upgrades that will fly on the Super Heavy booster and upper stage Starship spacecraft as part of Starship Flight 7. The next Starship flight will take off later this month, and the center of attention during testing will be the spacecraft. top tier Starship spacecraft. Flight 7 will be the first time SpaceX flies an upgraded upper stage with a new front section (top cover), and in a post yesterday, the company 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 showed that SpaceX had installed flight termination system (FTS) explosives on the 232-foot Starship Super Heavy booster. These explosives are a regulatory requirement on every rocket, and they provide teams on the ground to destroy the vehicle if an anomaly occurs.

Around the same time that they installed the explosives, SpaceX also shared a number of upgrades to the boosters and ships that would fly on Flight 7. The company outlined that they would reuse Raptor engines for the first time on Super Heavy. According to SpaceX, this engine flew on Starship Flight 5. Flight 5 was the first flight to successfully capture a Super Heavy booster with a tower catch arm, allowing SpaceX to recover all of its engines free from water damage.

As expected, the top tier of Starship will continue to test hardware to enable its towers to capture. According to SpaceX, it will add “a non-structural version of a ship’s capture equipment. . .to test the thermal performance of fittings” during reentry. SpaceX will install this equipment on the side of the rocket, and it may pave the way for the first ship capture on Starship Flight 8.

Capture hardware isn’t the only change to the Starship upper stage for Flight 7. The biggest improvements to the new rocket are its avionics and propulsion systems. Starting from the latter, SpaceX shares new feed lines, feed line isolation, and “increase in propellant volume by 25 percent” improves rocket performance and flight duration.

This year, SpaceX should also test fuel transfer in orbit to complete an important milestone for NASA’s Artemis Human Landing System (HLS) lunar lander. In this case, improved avionics or flight control equipment, at the top level will use more powerful computers and improved power distribution systems. The ship will also be equipped with more than 30 cameras to help engineers evaluate its performance.

Additionally, Starship Flight 7 will mark the first time an upper stage deploys a payload while in space. This is a Starlink simulator designed to emulate SpaceX’s low Earth orbit (LEO) internet satellites. Starship is key to Starlink’s future, as its greater capacity compared to the Falcon 9 rocket is critical to deploying second-generation satellites.

Like Flight 6, Starship Flight 7 will also feature Raptor ignition in orbit. SpaceX has added radar sensors and other hardware to the launch tower to improve its performance and reliability.

FTS (Flight Termination System) explosives are being installed on Booster 14 tonight for the Starship 7 flight test. An exciting pre-launch milestone that signals launch is imminent.

1/3/25 pic.twitter.com/6LU2Bodskv

— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) January 3, 2025