European Spaceflight
Static fire
Igniting the engines with the rocket bolted down, as a rehearsal.
The vehicle is held on the pad by clamps and the engines are run for a few seconds. It exercises the whole chain — propellant loading, ignition sequence, engine start transients, the ground systems — under real conditions while the rocket is still attached to the ground. Some operators do one before every flight, others only for new hardware. The related term is a wet dress rehearsal, which loads propellant and runs the count without lighting anything, and which has caught more problems than most people would guess.
Where it has come up lately
Related terms
Delta-v
The currency of spaceflight: how much you can change your velocity, in metres per second.
NET (no earlier than)
A launch date that is a lower bound, not a promise.
Max-Q
The moment of peak aerodynamic pressure on an ascending rocket.
Staging
Throwing away the empty part of the rocket so you stop accelerating it.
Questions
What is Static fire?
Igniting the engines with the rocket bolted down, as a rehearsal.
Why does it matter?
Some operators do one before every flight, others only for new hardware. The related term is a wet dress rehearsal, which loads propellant and runs the count without lighting anything, and which has caught more problems than most people would guess.