One of the big narratives that we’ve been glued to all 2023 has been SpaceX’s Starship being sidelined by regulators. This week we saw another wet dress rehearsal, as that’s all they can do, while a large number of Fish and Wildlife personnel comb land around Starbase for their review.
SpaceX does what it can while FWS keeps them grounded
After SpaceX’s April launch of its first Starship launch vehicle, the FAA worked with the launcher to complete an investigation into what caused the inflight failure. Last month that investigation was closed with SpaceX and the administration agreeing on a list of corrective actions to implement before moving forward.
This didn’t mean that SpaceX could go ahead and launch Starship again as their launch license still needed amending, but in the eyes of the FAA this is all they need from them to continue test flights. However, the FAA isn’t the only one that has to sign off on launches, the Fish and Wildlife Service gets to have a say when it comes to environmental reviews and there was a new one opened up after SpaceX made changes to its ground infrastructure.
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Livestream cameras from NASASpaceFlight (not affiliated with NASA the agency) caught the group of FWS personnel sweeping through land around Starship’s launch site. What they’re looking for, no idea, but they’re looking that’s for sure. Environmental reviews are not known for being quick and we aren’t sure how close the FWS are to completing their review.
This large number of FWS personnel came the morning after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal of its Starship rocket. Tuesday evening, SpaceX fully fueled both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage with liquid methane and oxygen. According to a social media post from the company (you can guess on which app) this totaled to more than 10 million pounds of propellent.
In a second post, SpaceX says that the rocket is ready for its second test flight. When that might be? Well for the last few months I’ve been hearing it would be happening in August, then September, then October, and now November. I guess eventually they will be right.
SpaceX has to wait for the FWS’s review to finish and then wait for the FAA to sign off on a second test flight. This could be a few weeks away or another few months. Then of course there’s that lawsuit that seems to still be working through administrative processes that could mess things up.
SpaceX seems to be making the most out of the time it has. Multiple new Starship vehicles and Super Heavy boosters are being produced and tested across the Starbase facility. It seems like we’re all the way up to at least Starship 31 in the manufacturing line, with more certainly in earlier stages of production.
Starship might have had a bumpy year, but 2024 is looking bright if all of its regulation and litigation issues fall by the wayside.
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