Elon Musk goes ahead? Starship will be tested, but the launch license has not been received

SpaceX’s prototype Starship rocket is already on the test site, and company CEO Elon Musk insists the flight will take place in July, although the launch license has not yet been given.

Elon Musk is confident that Starship will launch into space in July, although the company still needs to get a license to launch / Photo: Collage: Today, www.space.com

scale SpaceX Starship project launched last weekhis “Booster 7” super-heavy rocket prototype moved to a test site in South Texas.

Earlier we wrote that Elon Musk is sure: Starship will go into low Earth orbit next month. But the FAA approval that the company has finally received is still no guarantee that the flight will take place. SpaceX still needs to get a launch license.

Nevertheless, Musk’s company is preparing for the flight in full: the Starship rocket and its Super Heavymust be pressure tested and possibly a static fire test at their facility near Boca Chica. This test will evaluate the rocket’s ability to continuously burn fuel over a period of time.

If Booster 7 survives, which is “by no means a guarantee given the nature of Raptor 2 engine development,” the booster could lead Starship to an orbital test flight in July, the company said in a report.

The SpaceX Starship program includes both the Super Heavy first stage booster and the 165-foot (50-meter) upper stage vehicle, also called the Starship. Both missiles are designed to be reusable. When fully folded, the Starship and Super Heavy are 395 feet (120 m) tall, which makes them the tallest rocket in the world.

Ultimately, SpaceX plans to use this system to get people and payloads to the Moon for NASA and then target Mars and other destinations in the solar system, but Starship only has a few high-altitude test flights so far.

Starship is NASA's lander for its Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2025.

Starship is NASA’s lander for its Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2025. / Photo: www.space.com

Recall that Starship is NASA’s lander for its Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2025. Musk wants to send humans to Mars around the same time, and the businessman is notorious for setting aggressive and ambitious goals for both SpaceX as a whole and the Tesla manufacturing company.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk keeps tweeting that the system’s long-awaited orbital test flight will happen next month. But even now FAA approval is not a guarantee.

SpaceX still need to get a license to rundepending on how well the agency believes it has addressed these outstanding issues in the environmental assessment.

We also wrote that NASA is against Elon Musk: the agency said that Starship would explode right at the start.

Source: Segodnya

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