Elon Musk / Twitter
SpaceX has finally received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch its Starship prototype SN9 in South Texas.
The report came early Tuesday morning, when the FAA posted “SpaceX Starship is scheduled to launch from Boca Chica without major consequences,” as part of the daily planning advice. The handful of Boca Chica locals were also notified this morning of the need to evacuate from their homes.
If you’ve been following this saga, this approval has been a long time coming. The company began final preparations for a launch more than a week ago, but an attempt on Monday, January 25 was eventually called off. Then, last Thursday, SpaceX went so far as to evacuate local residents, have local sheriffs clean up nearby beaches, and fully fuel the vehicle. The weather conditions were perfect.
But the vehicle was not going anywhere, because it was not licensed to make a test flight of 10 km. As Starship blows off liquid oxygen on the launch pad, SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk aired on Twitter. “The FAA’s aerospace division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure,” Musk said. A similar downward look happened Friday morning, as preparations were made for a launch. Yet there was no permit to fly.
Since then, sources have indicated that the FAA was extra careful about the SN9 flight clearance after there were irregularities during the licensing process for the December SN8 flight from South Texas. In all fairness, there are all kinds of rumors circulating, so without an official statement, it’s hard to know for sure what happened. But it seems clear that the FAA followed a reasonable process to ensure that SN9 would be as safe a flight as possible for local real estate near the launch site.
Now this regulatory drama will fade into the background with SN9 taking center stage. It will be launched against a stunning backdrop, as SpaceX has already moved a second Starship prototype to a second nearby launch stand. This SN10 vehicle is very likely to launch later this month as SpaceX accelerates its test flight program.
The nominal plan is for the SN9 prototype to ascend to an altitude of approximately 10 km and then perform a “belly flop” maneuver to simulate the escape of energy during reentry from Earth’s atmosphere. As it approaches the surface, this spacecraft prototype will reorient itself and land near the launch pad. It was this final part – the execution of a final landing maneuver – that was reversed with the spectacular, fiery demise of SN8 in December.
SpaceX is expected to webcast the launch attempt on Tuesday – the timing is uncertain, of course – and we’ll embed it below when it goes live.