While talking about Starship's orbital shot, Shotwell also pointed to SpaceX's anticipated primary commercial market for Starship, which is point-to-point deliveries of cargo and passengers. On June 15, for example, Musk tweeted a photo (opens in new tab) showing two pieces of the massive rocket about to come together. Meanwhile, SpaceX continues to work on Super Heavy, which has not yet gotten off the ground. Related: SpaceX could land astronauts on the moon in 2024, Elon Musk says (The 6-mile-high hops all employed just a Starship prototype, with no Super Heavy component.) The Starship upper stage will soar into orbit and make a soft splashdown roughly 62 miles (100 km) off the northwest coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. If all goes to plan, the first-stage Super Heavy booster will come down in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff, roughly 20 miles (32 km) off the Texas coast. The orbital flight plan stated that the Starship orbital mission will launch from the usual location near Boca Chica, Texas, for an ambitious round-the-world uncrewed flight that will splash down off the coast of Hawaii. Federal Communications Commission, around the same time that the SN15 prototype aced its 6-mile-high flight, a first for the Starship program. Then in May, SpaceX filed a flight plan with the U.S. Musk first tweeted about the July target (opens in new tab) back in March, about a week after SpaceX's SN10 Starship prototype briefly stuck the landing after a 6-mile-high (10 kilometers) test flight but then exploded. Only after that process is complete can the Federal Aviation Administration move on to licensing a possible orbital Starship launch,' Wattles wrote. 'Depending on the outcome of that assessment, it may also be required to go through a more detailed review culminating in an updated environmental impact statement. It is unlikely that process could be done in time to support a launch in the near future,' SpaceNews reported on Saturday (opens in new tab) (June 26).Įarlier this month, CNN Business' Jackie Wattles wrote that the reviews and approvals likely won't be done (opens in new tab) in time for an early July launch, citing a source familiar with the licensing process. 'The FAA has not provided an update on the status of the environmental assessment, which would include publication of a draft version for public comment before a final version.

Starship by Editorial Planeta S.A.U.