SpaceX is moving closer to its first Starship launch in 2024 from its Starbase in Texas, probably as soon as three weeks away. But the company is already putting pressure on regulators to increase the number of test flights.
During a press conference, FAA Commercial Space Transportation Administrator Calvin Coleman said the agency is working with the company to facilitate the Starship launch licensing process, ArsTechnica reports.
They are looking at a fairly aggressive launch schedule this year. I believe they are planning at least nine launches this year. That’s a lot of launches. If you’re creating new mods and doing them one by one, it’s a lot of work. We’re constantly talking to SpaceX, getting together and trying to figure out how we can do it.
After SpaceX decided to launch and attempt to land its Starship in Texas about five years ago, the company had to undergo an extensive environmental review of the site. As part of this process, the FAA completed a final programmatic environmental assessment in June 2022. After that, SpaceX received permission to conduct up to five Starship launches from South Texas annually. An FAA representative confirmed that the company is seeking to change that limit to five launches to allow for greater flight frequency.
In April 2023, SpaceX launched its first Starship rocket, the largest rocket ever built and designed to be fully reusable. The flight caused serious damage to the launch pad at Boca Chica and raised concerns among environmentalists after large chunks of concrete and dust were thrown onto the surrounding marshland. Coleman said the anomaly investigation and regulatory review process after that flight took about six months, which he said was comparable to the amount of work that was done.
A second launch attempt in November was more successful, with the launch vehicle’s first stage, the Super Heavy, making a near-nominal flight and the Starship booster separating from the launch vehicle before encountering an anomaly and being lost. This time there was no damage on the ground. According to Coleman, the work done by the FAA to analyze the anomaly was about a third less.
The second flight is SpaceX Starship. How was it (photo, video) and when will the most powerful rocket fly again?
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said his company plans to make a third Starship launch attempt in early to mid-March. According to Musk, this flight of a highly experimental ship has the highest chance of successfully reaching orbit.
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