SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype is a big step closer to removal.
Elon Musk’s company is ready to launch the vehicle, known as the SN10, on a 6-mile (10-kilometer) test flight from its South Texas yard.
And such preparations can now really get underway, as SpaceX and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have just completed an investigation into the last such flight, a hike on February 2 that ended with SN10’s predecessor, SN9 , explode on touch.
Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX’s Mars colonizing vehicles in images
“The FAA has concluded its investigation into the February 2 space XS prototype SN9 prototype crash today and is waiting its way for the SN10 test flight pending the FAA’s approval of license updates,” an FAA spokesman said Friday. (February 19) said in an email statement.
“The FAA oversaw the SN9 crash investigation conducted by SpaceX. The SN9 vehicle failed within the confines of the FAA safety analysis,” the statement continued. “The unsuccessful landing and explosion did not endanger the public or property. All debris was contained within the designated danger area. The FAA approved the final accident report, including the probable causes and corrective actions.”
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SpaceX develops Starship to take humans and cargo to Mars and other distant destinations. The architecture consists of two reusable elements: a 50 meter long spacecraft called Starship and a giant rocket known as Super Heavy.
Both of these vehicles are powered by SpaceX’s next generation Raptor engine. Musk said the final Starship will have six Raptors, and Super Heavy will have about 30 of them.
SpaceX is repeating its way to the operational Starship via a series of increasingly complex prototypes, several of which have already come from the ground up. The SN8 and SN9 vehicles – which both had three birds of prey, such as SN10 – flew approximately 6 kilometers high on 9 December 2020 and 2 February respectively. Both did well until the end, fail to hold their landings.
Such test flights require FAA approval. SpaceX launched SN8 in December despite being dismissed to exceed the maximum public safety risk allowed by federal regulations, FAA officials said earlier this month. SpaceX then had to stop all tests on the South Texas site that could affect public safety until it completed an investigation into the incident and approved corrective actions by the FAA.
The resulting delay appears to irritate Musk, which ‘after January 28 Twitter Post that “the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure.”
It is not surprising that the ambitious Musk has an aggressive intended timeline for Starship. He recently said that he wants a prototype to reach the earth around this orbit and that the vehicle should be people fly regularly by 2023.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.