Spacex still has some boxes to mark before you can launch the ninth test flight of its Starship Megarockt.
On Friday (May 15), the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA (FAA) announced that it has approached the modifications of the license before flight 9 of Starship, which will take off from the Spacex Starbase site in southern Texas. This official license grants Spacex’s request to increase the number of spacecraft from Starbase per year for a factor of five, to 25, something that the Greenlit agency earlier this month in an environmental assessment.
“However, Spacex can’t be launched [Flight 9] Until the FAA closes the investigation of the Starship Flight 8 setbacks or making a return determination, “agency officials said in a statement sent by email on Friday.
Flight 8 was launched from Starbase on March 6. Things agreed to plan at the beginning; Super Heavy, the giant reinforcement of the first stage of Starship, accelerated its engine and returned to the site for a dramatic capture of the arms “stick” of the launch tower.
But the 171 -foot high (52 meter) spacecraft on the upper stage, known as Starship or simply shipping, did not go so well. The vehicle exploded less than 10 minutes after takeoff, raining debris in the Bahamas.
It was practically a repetition of flight 7, which was launched on January 16: Super Heavy returned to the base that day, but the ship went to Boom on the Atlantic, with burning pieces of spacecraft splashing down and around the Turkish and Caicos Islands.
These two mishaps stimulated the United Kingdom government officials to communicate with the United States Department of State, requesting that the path of flight 9 be changed to help safeguard the British territories in the Caribbean, according to Propublic. (Turks and Caicos are a British territory abroad; the Bahamas is an independent nation but is part of the Commonwealth)
FAA seems to share at least some of that concern.
“For the Starship Flight 9 mission, FAA is expanding the size of the danger and sea danger areas both in the United States and in other countries,” agency’s officials wrote in Friday’s statement. “This is the result of the FAA that requires Spacex to review the flight safety analysis after the previous launch setback and because Spacex intends to reuse a super -heavy reinforcement rocket previously launched for the first time.”
The Aircre 9 Aircraft area now includes both the Bahamas and Las Turcas and Los Caicos, according to an environmental assessment of the mission that the FAA published on Friday.
The super heavy that will be placed on flight 9, by the way, is the one made by flight 7. Spacex is changing only four of its 33 Raptor engines; The other 29 will turn on flight 9 again, according to the company.
Spacex has been preparing for flight 9 for a while. He has already performed “static fire” motor tests with super heavy and boat, for example.
Elon Musk said May 13 that Spacex pointed to takeoff at some point in this week. Hey, he also said that he
It is an uncle if Spacex will reach that time line of flight 9, however, since the FAA is still reviewing the flight accident report 8.
