SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas—On the eve of the first integrated flight test of the reusable Starship/Super Heavy transportation system, SpaceX chief engineer, CEO and founder Elon Musk said his most fervent wish is to not destroy the launchpad.
“If there is a very big fireball it will melt the steel and slag the launchpad,” Musk said during a subscriber-only discussion on Twitter on April 16 with a planned launch of the Starship/ Super Heavy system being prepared to lift-off as early as 9 a.m. EDT April 17.
“It would take us probably several months to rebuild the launchpad if we melt it, so my hope is, please may fate smile on us and we clear the launchpad before anything goes wrong. That’s all I’m asking,” Musk continued.
A reusable, Mars-class rocket—a personal and professional goal of Musk’s for decades—is key to his wish to drastically reduce the cost of space transportation, enabling human civilization to migrate beyond Earth.
The flight test will be SpaceX’s first attempt to launch a 33-engine, methane-fueled Super Heavy booster and the first attempt for a Starship upper stage—outfitted with an additional six methane-burning Raptor engines—to reach nearly orbital velocities.
Standing nearly 400 ft.-tall, the Starship/Super Heavy integrated vehicle will launch from SpaceX’s privately owned spaceport in Boca Chica Beach, Texas, located just south of South Padre Island on Texas’s Gulf Coast.
After more than 500 days of review, the FAA on April 14 granted SpaceX a launch license for the first Starship/Super Heavy flight test.
In a background briefing with reporters, an FAA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Starship vehicle could reach a maximum altitude of 146 mi. It will not reach orbital velocity, but is targeted to coast around the planet before attempting a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean about 90 min. after liftoff.
The FAA said Starship will not make any propulsion maneuvers during its descent, but will maintain attitude control “using other means.” The agency did not elaborate.
Musk said on April 16 he doubts the flight test will get that far. “Success is not what should be expected tomorrow. That would be insane. Maybe the second [flight test] will be, or maybe the third.
“What actually matters here is the fact that we are building rockets at a rapid pace. We have Booster 9 and Ship 26 almost ready to go and a steady cadence of rocket production afterwards with significant improvements between each iteration,” Musk said.
“The payload for this mission is information—information that allows us to improve the design of future Starship builds. That is our only goal,” he added.
Under the flight plan submitted and approved by the FAA, the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines will burn for 2 min. 49 sec., sending the 40-story vehicle out over the Gulf of Mexico. The first stage will then separate from the Starship upper stage and relight engines for a series of maneuvers to make a controlled descent and splashdown about 20 mi. off the Texas coast.
Meanwhile, Starship’s six Raptor engines will fire to propel the vehicle to nearly orbital velocity. SpaceX plans eventually for both stages to be fully reusable, which Musk estimates would bring down the cost of a launch to a few million dollars.
“We’re hoping for a safe launch, but you never know where things might break or when things might go wrong,” the FAA official said. “I think we have really good mitigations in place [to cover] all the potential hazards that could occur during launch.”
A safety zone extending about 4 mi. from SpaceX’s Starbase spaceport has been established to keep non-essential personnel and launch viewers from the blast danger zone.
Under its FAA license, SpaceX was required to obtain an insurance policy that covers at least $500 million for possible third-party property damage caused by a launch accident and $48 million for any third-party damages that occur during prelaunch preparations.
The April 17 launch window lasts for 150 min. SpaceX said late on April 16 it was targeting launch for 9 a.m. EDT, which would be 60 min. into the window.
Weather is not expected to be acceptable for launch attempts on April 18 or 19.
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