Elon Musk‘s SpaceX said on Monday that its Starship‘s fifth test flight could launch as soon as Oct. 13 if it receives necessary regulatory approvals.
What Happened: The schedule, however, is likely to change, the company warned, citing the dynamic schedules associated with all developmental testing activities.
For the upcoming flight, the goal is to catch the two-stage launch vehicle’s booster back at Starbase using the launch tower's mechanical arms, marking a significant demonstration of Starship’s reusability. The Starship spacecraft, meanwhile, will splash down in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX is looking to ensure full reusability for its Starship rocket. The company believes reusing rockets is integral to bringing down spaceflight costs as the most cost is taken up in building the launch vehicle.
Past Flight Tests: SpaceX has conducted four flight tests with the Starship thus far.
SpaceX last launched Starship in the first half of June. During the test, the two stages of the vehicle – the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster – separated, and the booster subsequently had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft ignited its engines and went into space, made a controlled re-entry to Earth, and had a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The entire flight lasted one hour and six minutes from launch. The key object of the flight was to re-enter Earth and the mission achieved it while withstanding damage to the vehicle.
The flights before accomplished less. While the spacecraft failed to reach space in the first flight, it reached space and exploded in the second test flight. During the third flight test, the spacecraft broke apart when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere from space.
Why It Matters: In September, SpaceX said that Starship has been ready for its fifth flight test since the first week of August but has been put off owing to “frivolous” and “patently absurd” licensing issues.
“Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” SpaceX said.
The company then said that it received a launch license date estimate of late November for the fifth flight from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), marking a two-month delay from the previously communicated date of mid-September. However, SpaceX is now seemingly optimistic about receiving approvals a month earlier.
Starship is key to NASA’s dreams of taking humans back to the surface of the Moon.
NASA’s Artemis 3 mission slated to launch no earlier than September 2026 is expected to enable humans to land back on the surface of the moon with the help of a lunar lander variant of the Starship spacecraft. The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
Musk, meanwhile, is eyeing taking humans to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars aboard the Starship. Musk said that the first Starship launch to Mars is expected in September 2026 and that it will not have a crew on board.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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