The Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light on Thursday in SpaceX to launch the next test flight from its mega-road Starship as of next week, after two consecutive failures earlier this year.
The failures have returned the SpaceX vessel program for several months. The company aims to put the development of the rocket on the right track with the upcoming launch, the ninth large -scale test of starship since its beginnings in April 2023. Starship is at the heart of SpaceX’s longtime ambition at the Moon under the programming of the Artemis government.
In a statement on Thursday, the FAA said that SpaceX was authorized to launch the next Starship test flight, known as flight 9, after finding the company “meets all rigorous security, environmental and other licenses”.
SpaceX has not confirmed the target launch date for the next launch of Starship, but warning warnings for pilots and sailors to avoid danger zones in the Gulf of Mexico suggest that the flight could occur from the evening of Tuesday, May 27. The rocket will take off from Starbase, Texas, the private space of SpaceX near the American border.
It will be the third flight of the improved Bloc 2 of SpaceX, or version 2, Starship Rocket. The first two flights of the vessel block 2– in January and March–did not go well. On occasion, the upper stage of the rocket closed its engines prematurely and the vehicle has lost control, separating into the upper atmosphere and spreading debris near the Bahamas and Turkish and caïcos islands.
Starship debris fall into the atmosphere after the flight of Starship 8 in this view of Hog Cay, Bahamas.
Credit: Genedoactorb via x
Investigators determined that the cause of January’s failure was a series of fuel and fire leaks in the ship’s rear compartment. The leaks were probably triggered by more intense than expected vibrations, SpaceX said before the last starship flight in March. SpaceX did not announce the cause of the failure of the march, although the circumstances are similar to the accident in January.
