SpaceX is set for the eighth launch of its Starship megarocket. Elon Musk’s company aims to lift off from Starbase in South Texas on Monday evening, March 3. The exact date was uncertain until the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted permission for the launch.
In a recent statement, the FAA confirmed that SpaceX has met all necessary safety and environmental requirements for this flight. They modified the license to allow Flight 8 to proceed.
The last launch happened on January 16. That test flight had mixed results. SpaceX successfully caught the Super Heavy booster with a launch tower mechanism, but the upper stage had a propellant leak and exploded over the Atlantic, ending that mission early.
Even with this new launch approval, the FAA is still looking into the previous flight’s issues. They emphasized that SpaceX can continue launch operations while the investigation is ongoing.
Flight 8 is expected to start during a window opening at 6:30 p.m. EST (5:30 p.m. local Texas time). You can watch it live on Space.com.
This flight has similar objectives to the last one. SpaceX plans to catch the Super Heavy booster again and to fly the upper stage, called Ship, nearly all the way around Earth before landing in the Indian Ocean near Western Australia. Ship will also deploy four mock Starlink satellites during its flight, a goal it couldn’t achieve in Flight 7.
Check out this related article: Unlocking the Secrets of the Andromeda Galaxy: Hubble’s Profound Insights into a Million-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery
Source link