Monitoring Desk
TEXAS: Elon Musk has shared an incredible new video showing SpaceX’s Starship rocket on the launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, Mail Online reported.
Musk, who is CEO of both SpaceX and Twitter, tweeted the video this morning with the caption ‘Starship preparing for launch.’
The £2.4 billion ($3 billion) rocket measures a staggering 395ft tall, and is said to be the world’s most powerful rocket.
And it could be a matter of days before we finally see it take flight.
The government’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said earlier this week that Starship could blast off as early as Monday, April 10.
Despite this being in just five days, Elon Musk’s firm still needs a launch licence for the event before it can take place, although this could be granted by Monday.
Musk has already warned that there’s a 50 per cent chance that Starship will explode during lift-off, adding that the launch ‘won’t be boring’.
SpaceX’s historic launch will act as an early milestone in Musk’s ambition to carry people and cargo to the moon and Mars, making us a ‘multiplanetary’ species.
A planning notice posted by the FAA has said the orbital launch’s primary expected date is April 10, but it’s listed backup dates as April 11 and 12.
‘The FAA has not made a license determination for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy operation,’ the FAA said in a statement.
‘The FAA’s Command Center planning notice should not be interpreted as an indicator that a determination to issue a license has been made or is forthcoming.’
The tipped Monday launch date comes from a ‘person familiar with the process’ who asked not to be named, cited by Reuters.
They cautioned that the licensing process, while nearing completion, could take longer due to an environmental compliance review.
The most recent word from Musk is that the attempt will take place at the end of the third week of April – but the new information from the FAA suggests it could be sooner than that.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX is planning to carry humans to space using a two-stage spacecraft composed of the fully reusable Starship (the passenger-carrying section) and the Super Heavy rocket booster.
Together, Starship and Super Heavy measure a whopping 394ft (120 metres) tall, and weigh in a 11 million lbs (5 million kg).
Starship is able to generate 16 million pounds (70 Meganewtons) of thrust – almost double that of the other new generation rocket created by NASA known as Space Launch System (SLS).
Musk has previously estimated the total development cost of the Starship project to be between $2 billion (£1.6 billion) and $10 billion (£8 billion).
He later said it would probably be ‘closer to two or three [billion] than it is to 10.’
For years, SpaceX has already been testing prototypes of Starship, previously known as ‘BFR’, by launching them into the air and landing them.
These launches have had various degrees of success, with some exploding in a chaotic ball of flames and others returning unscathed.
However, a full-scale orbital test flight of the rocket is still yet to take place, despite Musk saying a year ago that it would likely happen in 2022.
Now it finally seems like the launch from Texas is mere days away, although a lot will depend on the FAA.
Shortly after launch, the Super Heavy booster will separate and softly land in the sea around 20 miles off of the state’s coast.
Starship will continue flying with its ground track – its pathway directly below it on Earth – passing through the Straits of Florida.
It will then softly land in the Pacific Ocean around 60 miles northwest of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.
The whole spaceflight is expected to last just 90 minutes.
Once a successful orbital flight is in the bag, SpaceX will focus on launching valuable satellites and other payloads to orbit on Starship.
SpaceX isn’t just planning on having one Starship; Musk has also previously said his firm has built a ‘factory for making a lot of these vehicles’.
Ultimately, Musk wants to make human life ‘multiplanetary’ – living on several planets – which could require about a thousand Starships.
Musk thinks a natural or manmade disaster will eventually bring about the end of civilization, necessitating the relocation to another planet – Mars ‘being the only realistic option’.
Starship will be capable of carrying up to 100 people to the Red Planet on a journey that is 250 times further than the moon and would take around nine months each way.
The Martian surface is not the only destination for Starship, however.
NASA contracted SpaceX to use Starship for delivering astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2025, as part of the Artemis programme (the successor to the Apollo programme in the 1960s and 1970s).
A special lunar variant of the vehicle known as Starship HLS (Starship Human Landing System) will transport astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the surface of the moon and back again, as part of the Artemis 3 mission.
Artemis 3, scheduled for sometime in 2025, will mark the first time humans have walked on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
Meanwhile, Artemis 2, scheduled for next year, will transport humans around the moon and back to Earth.
Earlier this week, NASA revealed the four people who will make up the Artemis 2 crew.
Victor Glover, 46, from Pomona, California, becomes the first person of colour selected for lunar moon mission, while Christina Koch, 44, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, becomes the first woman.
They have been chosen alongside Reid Wiseman, 47, from Baltimore, Maryland and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 47.
