SpaceX may perform the first orbital flight test of the Starship vehicle between mid-to-late April. That’s what Elon Musk, CEO and founder of the company, said in a Twitter post this Thursday (16), in response to a user who mentioned that the flight test was close.
According to him, the company will be ready to launch in a few weeks, but the date of the mission depends on the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the regulatory agency for flights in the United States. “Assuming this will take a few weeks, the first attempt will be towards the end of the third week of April, i.e..”, he wrote.
The Starship is a system formed by the Super Heavy thruster and the Starship upper stage, the ship itself. According to a document released by the company in 2021, the space vehicle will be launched without a crew from Boca Chica, in south Texas, and will circle the Earth; then it will return to land in the Pacific Ocean.
In an interview conducted earlier this month, Musk stated that there is about a 50% chance that the flight test will be successful; however, he also pointed out that the company is assembling several vehicles at the Starbase facilities, and that some of them should have good results. “I think we have about an 80% chance of reaching orbit this year.
Both the Starship and its booster were designed to be completely and quickly reusable, but it may take some time for these aspects to become a reality. “It will probably take a few years to get to full and rapid reusability,” he noted during the interview.
