San Francisco: The much-awaited first orbital flight of SpaceX’s Starship could lift off as early as April 10, however, some barriers remain, according to media reports.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, in mid-March, said that the landmark flight might launch as soon as the third week of April. But recent developments suggest that the attempt could come even sooner than that.
The new date comes as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an air traffic advisory identifying April 10 as a primary launch date, TechCrunch reported.
In addition, Musk liked a tweet that simply reads “April 10” with a GIF of a rocket launching.
SpaceX has also rolled its Ship 24 out to Starbase’s orbital launch pad over the weekend. And Monday, the company also conducted fueling tests with Booster 7 on the orbital launch mount, with Ship 24 on the ground nearby, Space.com reported.
However, the FAA is yet to issue a launch licence to SpaceX.
According to Ars Technica science editor Eric Berger, there is also a very real possibility of a civil suit being filed over environmental issues immediately following the issuance of the launch licence.
In this case, a judge would have the power to issue a temporary injunction blocking the flight test until that civil suit is resolved, he wrote on Twitter.
Starship consists of a giant first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 50 metres upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship. Both stainless-steel vehicles are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX’s next-gen Raptor engine — 33 for Super Heavy and six for Starship.
NASA is also reserving “the use of its high-altitude WB-57 aircraft for observations of the Starship test flight April 10 and 11”, Berger said in a report.
“The agency is closely tracking SpaceX’s progress with the massive rocket, as it intends to use the Starship vehicle as a lunar lander for its astronauts as part of the Artemis moon missions,” he added
The test flight will launch Ship 24 for one lap around Earth, culminating with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Musk said recently that Starship has about a 50 per cent chance of success on that debut try. But SpaceX is building multiple Starship prototypes at Starbase and plans to launch them in relatively quick succession when they’re ready.
