(Washington) The American aviation regulator, the FAA, gave the green light on Wednesday to SpaceX for Elon Musk’s aerospace company to try for a second time to launch its Starship rocket, the most powerful ever built, after a spectacular explosion in April.
In a press release, the FAA indicated that the company had now “met all the required criteria”, particularly in terms of safety, environment, and financial responsibility, after the failure of the first launch of its new generation rocket.
“We are targeting Friday, November 17 for the second Starship test launch,” SpaceX posted on X, in the wake of the FAA announcement.
A two-hour firing window will open at 7 a.m. local (8 a.m. Eastern) for launch from SpaceX’s base in Boca Chica, Texas.
The development of Starship is being closely monitored by NASA, which is counting on this spacecraft for its Artemis missions returning to the Moon. A modified version of the machine must in fact serve as a lunar lander to deposit astronauts on the lunar surface.
On April 20, Starship took off for the first time in its complete configuration from Texas. But several engines did not work, and SpaceX teams deliberately blew up the rocket after a few minutes.
The takeoff had propelled a cloud of dust several kilometers northwest of the launch pad, itself heavily damaged. Pieces of concrete had been catapulted under the power of the engines.
The failure led to the opening of an environmental and safety investigation by the FAA and several environmental protection NGOs announced their intention to sue SpaceX.
“We fear that this second launch will once again create significant environmental damage,” Jared Margolis, lawyer for the NGO Center for Biological Diversity, told AFP.
Starship is a giant rocket 120 meters high, made up of two stages: the Super Heavy propulsion stage and its 33 engines, and above it the Starship spacecraft, which by extension gives its name to the entire rocket.
Its real innovation is that it must be entirely reusable, with the two stages being designed to return to land on their launch pad – thus reducing costs.
The flight plan will be the same as in April: the spacecraft must attempt to circle “almost completely around the Earth and dive into the water somewhere in the Pacific, just off the coast of Hawaii,” described the billionaire. It will therefore technically not reach Earth’s orbit, but will be “just below”.