JAKARTA - After obtaining permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), SpaceX will finally launch the company's most powerful rocket, Starship on Monday, April 17.
"After a comprehensive licensing evaluation process, the FAA stipulates SpaceX meets all safety, environmental, policy, payload requirements, airspace integration, and financial responsibility," the United States (US) state agency said.
Embed: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1646996041978507264?s=19
Starship consists of two parts, the top-stage Super Heavy and Starship first-stage boosters with a height of 120 meters that will take off from the Starbase SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas, in its first orbital flight.
The rocket booster will be thrown into the sea shortly after takeoff. However, in the upcoming flight, SpaceX plans to restore the vehicle by directing it to an upright landing at the launch site.
The flight included an orbital test by trying to send Starship in one round around Earth, for 90 minutes, culminating in a landing in the Pacific Ocean near the island of Kauai in Hawaii, as quoted by Digital Trends, Saturday, April 14.
Meanwhile, NASA is claimed to have backed up the use of the WB-57 high altitude aircraft for observations of the Starship test flight.
This is done because the space agency will use the Starship vehicle as a lunar lander for its astronauts on the Artemis mission.
In February, billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX last February completed a test-firing of the Super Heavy booster, which has 33 Raptor engines at its base, as one of the final technical steps towards launch.
Designed to transport cargo and people beyond Earth, Starship is critical to NASA's plans to return astronauts to the Moon.
SpaceX itself has won a contract of nearly $3 billion from the space agency in 2021, to use Starship as a lunar lander crew.
If SpaceX can maintain its launch plan, the rocket will take off at 7 a.m. local time in just a few days from now. The company will also broadcast live through its official YouTube channel, click here.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
