SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been saying that the company will try to send an interplanetary spacecraft to Earth orbit for the first time in a few months.
Elon Musk recently added that the Starship will be in orbit “very soon”. Considering SpaceX’s recent work progress, this could mean that SpaceX is actually on the verge of an orbital launch program.
Over the past few months, SpaceX has conducted a series of tests on the prototype Starship 24 and Super Heavy Booster 7 and is about to attempt its first orbital launch from the company’s Starship base in south Texas.
SpaceX tweeted, “Before the Starship’s first flight test in the coming weeks, the team is completing a series of ground tests, including a full-stack pre-launch condition ensemble and a static ignition test of the 33 Raptor engines onboard Booster 7.”
Over the course of the past three months, the prototype Starship 24 and Super Heavy Booster 7 have been combined and disassembled three times, during which time the crew has been performing various repair operations and adjustments.
Elon Musk shared a photo on Twitter of the completed stack of the Starship and Super Heavy Booster, which at 120 meters tall is the largest rocket ever built. The fully reusable launch platform is capable of delivering up to 100 tons of cargo into near-Earth orbit.
SpaceX has encountered many setbacks while testing the interplanetary spacecraft on the ground, such as starting wildfires and unexpected fireballs at the bottom of the launch platform.
For now, SpaceX is still actively working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to obtain an early launch permit.
Last June, the FAA determined that SpaceX’s interplanetary spacecraft activities had “no significant impact” on the surrounding environment, but required the company to make more than 75 changes to ensure that no changes would occur.
As usual, Elon Musk’s promises are always half-hearted. After all, he’s been wrong far more often than he’s been right.
But in the meantime, SpaceX has been making steady progress, paving the way for the first orbital launch test of an interstellar spacecraft in the near future.
