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SpaceX said on Wednesday that its massive Super Heavy-Starship rocket has been approved for a second test flight on Friday. During this flight, the company plans to try launching the unpiloted Starship upper stage into orbit for the first time.
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Almost seven months after the rocket experienced numerous malfunctions and burst on its first flight in April, SpaceX was finally able to take off when the Federal Aviation Administration earlier in the day approved the necessary launch license, capping weeks of excitement.
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Since then, SpaceX has carried out 63 FAA-mandated "corrections" aimed at enhancing flight performance and safety, as well as what company founder Elon Musk claimed to be "well over" 1,000 modifications and improvements.
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"After consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a written evaluation of the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment, the FAA concluded there are no significant environmental changes."
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The Super Heavy is scheduled to launch Friday at 8 a.m. EST, the start of a two-hour window, from SpaceX's Boca Chica flight test facility on the Texas Gulf Coast.
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The Starship will be sent on a looping trajectory around the earth as part of the flight plan, and it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii upon re-entry.
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The 30-foot-wide Super Heavy-Starship, which stands 397 feet tall and weighs more than 11 million pounds when fully fueled, is the biggest and most potent rocket ever constructed.
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At full speed, the 33 Raptor engines of the Super Heavy first stage can provide 16 million pounds of thrust, or about twice the power of NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket, which is now the most powerful rocket in the world.
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NASA, which is spending billions on a version of the Starship upper stage to transport Artemis humans from lunar orbit down to the moon's surface, and SpaceX would both celebrate a significant victory with a successful flight test.
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