Regulators have given SpaceX the go-ahead to launch Starship for the seventh time, although the company has not yet announced when that mission may take place.
While the exact launch date is unclear, SpaceX engineers have been as busy as ever at the company’s massive launch site near Boca Chica, Texas. In recent days, the company performed test fires of the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage (which is also called Starship), though the two stages have yet to be stacked at the launch tower. The most recent Starship test took place on November 19 with president-elect Donald Trump as a guest.
The FAA said SpaceX could launch multiple missions under the new approval, provided that the mission profile and vehicle configuration don’t change. This mission profile includes the another catch attempt of the Super Heavy booster — which SpaceX nailed for the first time in an October launch — and the Starship upper stage vehicle performing a controlled water landing in the Indian Ocean.
Regulators, working with SpaceX, also approved a handful of “damage exceptions” that would not trigger a mishap investigation should they occur. These include things like failure of the upper stage’s Raptor engine during the landing burn or damage to the thermal shield or flap system on the vehicle. These “test induced damage exceptions,” as the FAA calls them, will mean a quicker return to launch providing that these issues do not cause serious injury to the public or property.
This is the only time that the launch license from FAA has not been immediately followed by a launch date announcement — and the regulator did not shy away from highlighting how quickly it moved the license modification forward.
“The FAA continues to increase efficiencies in our licensing determination activities to meet the needs of the commercial space transportation industry,” FAA associate administrator Kelvin B. Coleman said in a statement. “This license modification that we are issuing is well ahead of the Starship Flight 7 launch date and is another example of the FAA’s commitment to enable safe space transportation.”
SpaceX has been increasingly vocal about its grievances with the regulator, and many of its complaints have centered around the “superfluous” regulatory delays that have held up the Starship test program. In September, the company said in a lengthly blog post that the licensing process for Starship has been “repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd.”
Starship is the largest rocket ever built, standing at nearly 400 feet and generating around 3.3 million pounds of thrust at take-off. It is the centerpiece of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ambition to make humans multi-planetary. Musk has previously said that he’s aiming to launch an uncrewed Starship to Mars as early as 2026.
