Recently SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy Rocket received approval for launching the rocket from the FAA. Elon Musk stated that the spaceship’s first orbital launch will be in July, which doesn’t seem likely. Especially as FAA kept certain limitations for the launch, one of which is to give advanced notices.
Starship will be launched with a substantial first-stage booster called Super Heavy. It is a 50-foot-tall upper-stage spacecraft. The spaceship is being developed to send a large number of people and cargo to the moon and mars. It is a gigantic rocket that is expected to set a mark in the space industry.
So far the rocket has gone through various high-altitude test flights. The launches took place from Starbase, its South Texas site near Boca Chica village. The company is now focused on the orbital test flights. Elon Musk said on Twitter, “Starship will be ready to fly next month. I was in the high bay & mega bay late last night reviewing progress.”
We will have a second Starship stack ready to fly in August and then monthly thereafter
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 14, 2022
Furthermore also added that the second Starship stack will be ready by August for launch. It appears that monthly launches are being scheduled for the Starship orbital launch. It goes along with Musk’s previous statement that rocket launches would happen on a much more regular basis, possibly daily in the future.
Preparations
Much of this prep work involves building and testing Raptors, the next-generation engine that will power Starship. Each Super Heavy booster will sport 33 Raptors and each Starship spacecraft will have six of them, Musk has said. For perspective: SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket is powered by nine less-powerful Merlin engines in its first stage and one in its upper stage.
Hardware readiness won’t guarantee a July Starship flight, however; SpaceX still needs to secure a launch license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And getting one won’t necessarily be easy; the FAA just issued an environmental assessment of Starship activities at Starbase, which laid out more than 75 things that SpaceX must do to mitigate its impact on the surrounding area, a biodiversity hotspot.
If everything goes well with Starship’s test campaign, the vehicle could go very far afield in the next few years. NASA picked Starship to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to put boots on the moon in 2025 or 2026. And Musk has voiced optimism that Starship could start launching people to Mars in the same general time.
