“Excitement guaranteed!” (SpaceX’s own words)
Elon Musk has tweeted: “Starship is ready for launch. Awaiting regulatory approval.”
So SpaceX are finally ready to go for launch after two years of complex construction and testing. Starship’s first integrated flight test might happen as soon as the third week of April, perhaps as early as the 17th, which is next Monday. And this much-anticipated launch of a fully-stacked Starship and Super Heavy booster will surely guarantee more of that excitement - more of that edge-of-the-seat sheer exhilaration - which we enjoyed with the earlier Starship test flights that took place between August 2020 and May 2021. And those of us who’ve been following the Starship program from the very beginning will never forget that wonderful inaugural 150m “hop” of the odd-looking Starhopper on 27th August 2019.
Starship and its Super Heavy booster are integrated, ready on the launch pad (Credit: SpaceX)
So the tension is now definitely starting to build again. Yes, experience shows that we must expect possible scrubs - because there are 1001 things that can go wrong, any one of which will cause a delay in us hearing those immortal words: “Go for launch!” That’s part of the excitement building; we all understand this, except perhaps for newcomers. But the one thing that we’ve heard several times before that nobody ever likes to hear is the enthusiasm-zapping downer: “Awaiting regulatory approval.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has recently stated: "The FAA has not made a license determination for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy operation, and the FAA's Command Center planning notice (identifying a primary launch date for Starship) should not be interpreted as an indicator that a determination to issue a license has been made or is forthcoming."
You can hear the expletives from the mouths of many of us worldwide who are eagerly awaiting this breakthrough test flight. So imagine what it must be like for SpaceX’s Starship team who are “ready for launch”! It’s been almost two years since SN15 gently touched down and remained upright, yet bureaucracy seems to be dragging its heels as slowly as ever. Every sensible person understands that safety is paramount - that the FAA have a thankless but necessary job to do - but the bureaucrats should nevertheless pull their proverbial finger out, plus demonstrate a better spirit of cooperation. As a previously-dominant superpower, the US has lost out to China in many ways, generally speaking, over recent years. And American democracy is now facing its darkest hour, with even the president of Venezuela telling the US to no longer give other countries a lecture on democracy. The current space race that’s happening between the US and China will be crucial for the future, and someone high up in the US administration must wake up and understand this, then significantly inject a sense of urgency into the FAA without compromising safety.
Whenever Starship launches, it will be a monumental moment in the history of space exploration. The Super Heavy booster alone has a staggering 33 Raptor engines. Working somewhere near 90% throttle at launch, they’ll collectively produce a mind-blowing 16 million pounds of thrust. That’s the equivalent of more than 225 Boeing 747 aircraft all heading for the skies at once. And it will crush the current record for the most thrust produced by a single rocket, held by SLS, which generated 8.27 million pounds of thrust when it launched in November 2022.
Even more ground-breaking is the fact that Starship and Super Heavy will be the first fully-reusable rocket, as well as the biggest at an immense height of 120m or 394ft. SpaceX have already broken the mould with their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, going against the normal mindset and silencing their many detractors, repeatedly demonstrating the practicality of reusability, with over 200 successful launches behind them and counting. But, as good as they are, these Falcon rockets aren’t fully reusable. So Starship will be the first to go all the way in this respect.
Starship will also be the first “methalox rocket” to reach orbit, fuelled by a combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The reason for this different choice of fuel is driven by the simple fact that both methane and oxygen can be sourced on Mars.
This first orbital test flight - and we’ve noted that SpaceX are preferring to use the term “integrated” rather than “orbital” - will not attempt to land or recover either Starship or the Super Heavy booster. If all goes to plan - and that’s a big “if” at this point in the testing program - Booster 7 will make a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico just over eight minutes after launch, with the Starship splashdown happening in the Pacific Ocean 90 minutes after launch. To repeat: this is the best-case scenario and any degree of success for this first test flight of its type will be applauded, adding invaluable data to what has already been learned.
In the future, the world’s tallest rocket launch and catch tower is designed not just to integrate and launch Starship and its Super Heavy booster, but also to catch Super Heavy on its return to Earth.
SpaceX have announced that a live webcast will begin approximately 45 minutes before liftoff. And when the countdown reaches that magical moment of 00.00.00, they’ve promised: “Excitement guaranteed!”
Written by Niki Whewell, 12th April 2023
UPDATE: The FAA issued the licence on Friday evening. SpaceX temporarily destacked Starship and Super Heavy, as required, to configure the Flight Termination System. Any launch schedule for a test flight must be seen as fluid, but 2.00pm (UK time) is a possibility.