SpaceX's massive Starship project was on the move last week, as its "Booster
7" Super Heavy rocket prototype moved to its South Texas test pad Thursday
(June 23).
The Starship rocket and its Super Heavy is set for pressure testing and
perhaps, a static fire test at its facility near Boca Chica that would
assess its abilities to burn fuel consistently over a period of time,
according to Ars Technica.
If it survives, "by no means a guarantee given the developmental nature of
the Raptor 2 engine," this booster could bring Starship on an orbital test
flight in July, the report added Friday (June 24).
SpaceX's Starship program includes both the first-stage booster, Super
Heavy, and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage vehicle also called
Starship. Both vehicles are designed to be fully reusable. When fully
stacked, Starship and Super Heavy stand 395 feet tall (120 m), making it the
world's tallest rocket.
SpaceX eventually plans to use this system to take humans and cargo to the
moon for NASA, then aim for Mars and other solar system destinations, but
Starship only has a few high-altitude test flights under its belt so far.
Those tests all took place in a cluster between August 2020 and May 2021;
ever since, SpaceX has been waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) to complete an environmental assessment for orbital
opportunities.
That process just wrapped up weeks ago with 75 required actions for SpaceX
to take to continue operations at Boca Chica. (The FAA had delayed the
deadline several times, saying it had to discuss the findings with other
agencies and sift through thousands of public comments sent after a draft
version was released in September 2021.)
But even now, FAA approval is not a guarantee. SpaceX still needs to secure
a launch license, pending how well the agency deems it addressed those
outstanding items in the environmental assessment.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted, however, that the long-awaited
orbital test flight of the system will happen next month.
"We will have a second Starship stack ready to fly in August and then
monthly thereafter," Musk added in another tweet.
Starship is NASA's lander of choice for its Artemis program, which aims to
put astronauts on the moon no earlier than 2025. Musk wants to send people
to Mars around the same time, but he is known for setting aggressive targets
both at SpaceX and his car manufacturing company, Tesla.
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Space & Astrophysics