SpaceX is gearing up to launch its latest Starship prototype of tens of thousands of feet as early as this week.
The challenge is to land it back on the ground: this maneuver has ended up exploding the two times the company previously tried. This time, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX dear that the prototype has a 60% chance of reaching success.
The prototype represents the upper stage of a two-part system: Finally, a roughly 23-story reinforcement called Super Heavy would elevate the spacecraft into orbit. Musk’s long-term vision is for the system to one day be able to fly astronauts to the Moon and feed hypersonic travel to Earth. He has said he plans to build 1,000 starships to transport people and cargo to Mars.
But first, SpaceX has to figure out how to land the rocket, as it’s critical to making the system reusable. Complete reuse could help Starship reduce the cost of reaching space 1,000 times.
The newest prototype is called Starship series no. 10 o SN10. It’s still unclear exactly when SpaceX plans to test the test flight, but Musk dit Sunday that there are “good chances” of launch this week.
When that happens, SN10 will roar tens of thousands of feet above SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. One by one, he would have to turn off the engines as he approached the peak of the flight, then turn to the sides and fall back to Earth in a controlled failure. As it approaches the ground, the rocket should fire the engines once more to turn straight in time to slow down the descent and gently touch the landing pad.
The last two times SpaceX conducted this flight, the prototypes crashed into its landing pads and exploded.
SPadre.com captured the second incident from a camera located at the top of a building about 10 km away:
Before this upcoming launch, SpaceX has to make a static fire to test the rocket’s engines, but it looks like the company has all the government clearance it needs for the launch. This includes a launch license approval, local road closures, and airspace closures.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued airspace closure notices for the 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. CT area on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Cameron County, Texas, has also issued a notice to close Boca Chica roads from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for Thursday. However, road closures and airspace can be canceled and rescheduled over and over until SpaceX is ready to launch.
We will update this post once SpaceX confirms the timing of its launch attempt.
SpaceX faces regulatory hurdles to get Starship into orbit
SpaceX’s two previous test flights, those of the SN8 and SN9 prototypes, were considered successes despite their explosive endings. This is because they showed that Starship is able to shoot to suborbital heights and then control its fall.
However, both flights sparked FAA investigations as the agency wanted to determine the cause of the blasts. It turned out that the SN8 had fallen victim to low pressure in a propulsion tank, causing the spacecraft to fall too quickly and crashed into its landing pad.
An additional problem with this attempt was that SpaceX had not obtained proper FAA approval, in violation of its launch license.
This triggered his own investigation, which kept SN9 flying. Once this prototype flew, one of its three Raptor engines could not restart as the rocket approached the ground.
All of these investigations have been closed, an FAA spokesman told CNN reporter Jackie Wattles. And launch license updates for SN10 flight are approved, according to the Washington Post reporter Christian Davenport.
Finally, SpaceX will want to launch a spacecraft into orbit to test its ability to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. This will require a different type of FAA license, but obtaining it means removing many regulatory hurdles, including a thorough environmental assessment.
(The environmental impact statement SpaceX previously completed for the launch of Boca Chica focused on the company’s smaller rockets, rather than its much larger Starship-Super Heavy system).
Now the company hopes to start this environmental assessment, but depending on the findings, SpaceX may have to make a new impact statement, which can take up to three years.
Complications are a leaked FAA document, obtained by Insider, which revealed that SpaceX plans to dig natural gas wells at Boca Chica to power the starships and power plants. These plans could also affect SpaceX’s environmental review process.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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