SpaceX projects 1st starship launch in 2022, says NASA

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SpaceX is targeting early December to launch its Starship rocket system into orbit for the first time, a crucial demonstration flight as the company aims to get NASA astronauts to the moon in the coming years, a US official said on Monday. fair (31).

SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has been looking for years to send its state-of-the-art rocket system into orbit from the company’s private launch pads in Texas, where it has only launched prototypes of the top half of the starship at about 10km high. to demonstrate landing attempts.

The December mission will test the entire system for the first time, involving the company’s 70-meter Super Heavy rocket to place the 50-meter Starship spacecraft into orbit.

“We anticipate four major flights of the starcraft. The first will take place in December,” Mark Kirasich, a NASA official who oversees development of the agency’s Artemis lunar program, told a live-streamed NASA Advisory Board meeting.

Further ground tests with the rocket and regulatory reviews could delay the maiden orbital mission beyond December. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees the security of the commercial launch site, has yet to give the go-ahead for the mission to SpaceX, part of Musk’s growing universe of companies, which also includes Tesla and Twitter.

NASA last year chose the SpaceX spacecraft to land humans on the Moon around 2025 for the first time since 1972. That mission, under a contract worth about $3 billion, requires several spaceflight tests in advance that may delay the landing mission.

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