Starship sits on its launchpad | Photo via SpaceX
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a launch license for SpaceX’s Starship, paving the way for a historic launch from South Texas as early as Monday morning.
The test launch is set to set many new records, including the most powerful and largest rocket ever launched. It will also set history for the state of Texas, as it will be the first time an orbital rocket will be launched from the state.
Texas has a long history of involvement with spaceflight. Most notably, it is home to the Houston-based Johnson Space Center, which serves as the headquarters for NASA’s human spaceflight program. In more recent years, Texas has attracted private spaceflight companies like Firefly Aerospace, which tests engines and builds rockets just outside of Austin, and Blue Origin, which tests engines and launches their New Shepard rocket in the deserts of West Texas near Van Horn. However, while Blue Origin has been launching its New Shepard from Texas since 2015 (and began launching humans in 2021), New Shepard does not have the power to make it to orbit.
SpaceX has also made suborbital launches from Texas, including early Falcon 9 prototypes from McGregor and Starship Prototypes from its South Texas launch facility known as “Starbase.” However, all of SpaceX’s orbital rockets launched from the United States have thus far flown from either Florida or California. (Flights of their original Falcon 1 rocket flew from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.)
SpaceX has been developing its Starbase facility since 2015. The site has served as the center of development for their new Starship rocket, a massive two-stage rocket larger and more powerful than NASA’s Saturn V rocket which brought humans to the Moon. SpaceX hopes to make the massive rocket cheaper than more traditional rockets by making the system fully reusable.
The test launch is currently scheduled for Monday morning, with a launch window opening at 7:00 am Central. The company has backup opportunities on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Further delays are possible, given the experimental nature of the vehicle.) At liftoff, if everything goes correctly, the 33 Raptor Engines on the first stage will propel the rocket off of the launch pad before heading on a trajectory over the Gulf of Mexico. The first stage engines will then shut down before stage separation about 3 minutes into the flight. The second stage will then light its six Raptor Engines, continuing on a course eastward. The first stage will then simulate a powered landing over the Gulf of Mexico, relighting its engines to slow down before impacting the surface of the water. The second stage will continue to make its way around the world, stopping just short of making a full orbit. It will reenter the atmosphere and splash down near Hawai’i about one and a half hours after liftoff.
Of course, as a test launch of an experimental new vehicle, any number of things could go wrong. No humans or payload are on board, and failure could occur at any point in the flight. SpaceX alluded to this in a timeline of the test mission, calling the moment of liftoff simply “Excitement Guaranteed.” SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk also alluded to potential delays, tweeting that “it might get delayed 3 days.”
Approval of the test launch from the FAA comes after a lengthy environmental assessment that concluded last summer. The agency required SpaceX to complete several actions to help protect the local environment before issuing the license. It appears those have been completed, with a launch license having been issued Friday afternoon.
SpaceX hopes to use Starship to return humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars. NASA has already selected Starship as the lander for its lunar program and is expected to ferry humans to the surface of our nearest celestial neighbor as a part of the upcoming Artemis III mission.