SpaceX is approaching the first Starship launch in 2024 from its Starbase in Texas, probably in three weeks. But the company is already pressuring regulators to increase the number of test flights.
During a press conference, Calvin Coleman, administrator for commercial space transportation at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said that the agency is working with the company to try to ease the licensing process for the Starship launch, transmits ArsTechnica.
They are looking at a pretty aggressive launch schedule this year. I believe they are planning at least nine launches this year. That’s a lot of launches. If you’re creating new modifications and doing them one after the other, it’s a lot of work. We are constantly talking to SpaceX, getting together and trying to figure out how we can do this.
After SpaceX decided to launch and attempt to land its Starship in Texas about five years ago, the company had to undergo an extensive environmental review of the site. As part of this process, the US Federal Aviation Administration completed the final programmatic environmental assessment in June 2022. After that, SpaceX received permission to conduct up to five Starship launches from South Texas annually. An FAA spokesperson confirmed that the company is seeking to change this limit to five launches to allow for a higher frequency of flights.
In April 2023 SpaceX launches its first Starship rocketwhich is the largest rocket ever built and is designed to be fully reusable. The flight caused severe damage to the launch site at Boca Chica and raised environmental concerns after large chunks of concrete and dust were thrown onto the surrounding marshland. Coleman said that the investigation into the anomaly and the regulatory review process after that flight took about six months, which he believes is commensurate with the amount of work that was done.
The second launch attempt in November was more successful, as the first stage of the launch vehicle, the Super Heavy, performed almost nominally, and the Starship upper stage managed to separate from the launch vehicle before it encountered the anomaly and was lost. This time, there was no damage on the ground. According to Coleman, the work that the FAA did to analyze this anomaly was about a third less.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that his company plans to make a third attempt to launch the Starship in early to mid-March. According to Musk, this flight of the highly experimental spacecraft has a high chance of successfully reaching orbit.