Elon Musk is almost ready to light SpaceX’s biggest candle yet. In a video appearance at a space-science conference on Wednesday, he predicted the two-stage, fully reusable Starship rocket could make its first orbital launch early next year.
“The first orbital flight, we’re hoping to do in January,”
“We’ll be complete with the launch pad and launch tower later this month,” the SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO said at the fall meeting of the National Academy of Science’s Space Studies Board. “We’ll do a bunch of tests in December and hopefully launch in January.”
Construction is currently underway at the rocket firm’s Boca Chica, Texas test site. SpaceX also needs to secure a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, which Musk said forecast will arrive around the end of the year.
Starship has the potential to make SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy look as obsolete as traditional, expendable rockets now appear next to those partially-reusable…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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