Third Starship launch set for Thursday — with possible South Africa flyover

Elon Musk’s SpaceX received the go-ahead to launch its giant Starship rocket a third time, four months after its last test ended in an explosion prematurely.

The Federal Aviation Administration reinstated SpaceX’s launch license, the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

SpaceX is targeting a launch as early as 7 a.m. local time [14:00 South African Standard Time] from the company’s Starbase launch facility in south Texas, according to a post on Musk’s social media platform X.

Starship — the largest and most powerful rocket ever developed — is key to Musk’s dream of carrying goods and people to the Moon, and one day to Mars.

Nasa has awarded SpaceX roughly $4 billion to turn Starship into a lander that can carry the agency’s astronauts to the moon’s surface.

Starship will also be used for launching the company’s next-generation Starlink satellites meant to increase capacity of the Internet-from-space business.

Targeting Thursday, March 14 for Starship’s third flight test. A 110-minute launch window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT → https://t.co/bJFjLCiTbK pic.twitter.com/hFq1L4w9et

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 13, 2024

Just like with the first test launches, SpaceX still aims to send Starship to near orbital speeds in space, demonstrating the rocket’s ability to reach orbit.

The company is adding a number of new objectives to this flight test in an attempt to push the envelope even further.

Starship’s first two test flights ended in explosions minutes after launch, first in April 2023 and then again in November.

The second launch did last longer, with Starship reaching space, and achieved more goals than the first.

After each attempt, the FAA reviewed the rocket’s safety, public and environmental impact and ordered SpaceX to take certain corrective actions.

Following November’s mission, the FAA ordered 17 corrective actions, including hardware redesigns for its Super Heavy Booster and additional fire protection and upgrades for its Starship vehicle.

The upgrades were minimal compared to the aftermath of Starship’s first launch, which resulted in significant destruction to the launchpad and surrounding area.

SpaceX is tweaking the flight plan for this third test flight.

During the first two test launches, SpaceX aimed to send Starship on a partial orbit around Earth, with the intention of having the vehicle splash down in the ocean off the coast of Hawaii.

Now, Starship won’t be getting that far. Instead, once Starship reaches near orbit, SpaceX plans to reignite the Raptor engines on the vehicle — the first time that feat would be demonstrated in space.

That would then bring the spacecraft down to splash in the Indian Ocean.

According to calculations by astronomer Jonathan McDowell, Starship’s flight path will take it over the northern part of South Africa.

Estimated Starship IFT-3 planned trajectory pic.twitter.com/2Ubrp2B9yH

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 7, 2024

However, it will likely be impossible to spot the vehicle with the naked eye, as its orbiting altitude at that stage could be several tens or hundreds of kilometres above the Earth.

For reference, commercial airliners cruise at around 9.4km to 11.6km.

In addition, Starship is an experimental vehicle that might perform differently than anticipated.

Any small adjustments in its flight path before South Africa could lead to the rocket veering onto a course hundreds of kilometres to the north or south.

During the flight, SpaceX aims to open the payload door on Starship, which will be needed in the future to deploy satellites into orbit.

Additionally, SpaceX will attempt to transfer super cold propellants between storage tanks inside the rocket, an experiment done in partnership with Nasathat is fundamental to the company’s ability to explore the solar system.

In order to get to distant destinations like the moon and Mars, Starship will need to “fill up” on propellant in orbit, like a car filling up on gas before a long trip.

However, no one has ever stored nor transferred large amounts of super-chilled propellant in space before.

SpaceX needs to demonstrate that it can perform this task and then do it again and again at a much larger scale.

The company estimates that it will need to launch “ten-ish” back-to-back flights of Starship to fill up one vehicle for a trip to the moon.

Compiled with Bloomberg.