SpaceX Is One Step Closer To Starship Launch Approval
SpaceX has been patiently waiting as Starship sits ready on the pad to launch only needing approval from the FAA. While this approval process hasn’t been as smooth as initially hoped, yesterday we got news of a significant milestone from the FAA. Specifically, the agency just wrapped up its Starship safety review, which assesses the risks that a launch might pose to public health and property.
On the other hand, despite this new approval, Starship is still not allowed to launch yet and needs the FAA to complete its environmental review process which has been underway for weeks now. On the bright side, all signs are pointing to a full launch approval and liftoff of this vehicle in just a few weeks.
This is based on the timeline of the environmental review and comments suggesting that not all the time allotted to the agency is needed to complete it. Here I will go more in-depth into the completion of Starship’s safety review, the environmental approval, possible launch date, and more.
New Approval
Yesterday on the 31st, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the agency had completed the safety review portion of the Starship/Super Heavy license evaluation. In the official FAA statement, they were quoted saying, “A safety review is focused on issues that affect public health and safety of property. It consists of evaluating the applicant’s safety organization, system safety processes, flight safety analysis, and quantitative risk criteria for launch, reentry, and vehicle disposal” they said.
While this is a great step, it’s important to point out that this does not mean the FAA is ready to update the Starship launch license and allow another launch to proceed. In the same statement, the agency said, “The FAA is continuing to work on the environmental review. As part of its environmental review, the FAA is consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, on an updated Biological Assessment under the Endangered Species Act. The FAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service must complete this consultation before the environmental review portion of the license evaluation is completed” they said.
Less than a week ago on Oct. 26, the FWS said it had formally reinitiated an Endangered Species Act consultation with the FAA about modifications to the pad on Oct. 19. “We have up to 135 days to issue an amended biological opinion but do not expect to take the full amount of time,” FWS stated. Earlier this year the agency said that “SpaceX must implement all corrective actions that impact public safety and apply for and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch. With this in mind, it’s clear that every step is complete except for the environmental review.
Unfortunately, this means SpaceX is still for the most part in the same position as they were for months now as they continue to wait for approval. Back in September, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial space transportation office said he believed that the FAA could wrap up safety reviews needed to update the SpaceX Starship launch license by the end of October. Obviously based on yesterday’s news he was spot on with this estimate. When he made this statement in September he also said that a concurrent environmental review is a “wild card” to that schedule. The reason for the environmental portion being somewhat of a wildcard is the fact that the FAA is not necessarily responsible but instead, it’s the Fish and Wildlife Service.
As far as what exactly they are reviewing in the environment, it has to do with the new water-cooled steel plate. After the first Starship launch destroyed the pad, SpaceX built and installed a massive steel plate and deluge system. On launch day, this system will spray thousands of gallons of water to try and dampen Starship’s 33 Raptor engine exhaust. However, because of the launch site’s position on the coast, the FWS needs to make sure it won’t harm the environment. This has to do with water salinity levels among other issues.
While the head of the FAA mentioned that this specific approval is a bit of a wildcard, he was also quoted saying, “We’re hoping that piece will wrap up somewhere in proximity to the safety review.” With the safety review now complete, we could realistically see the environmental approval within around 1 week. This would place a Starship launch right around mid to late November. While there still is some work to do, we are closer than ever to this second launch attempt and should expect some significant developments in the coming days.
An Improved System
About a week ago SpaceX loaded Starship and Super Heavy with more than 10 million pounds of propellant in a flight-like rehearsal ahead of launch. The test went well and soon after the company commented, “Vehicle is ready for the second test flight of a fully integrated Starship, pending regulatory approval.” Looking back at Starship’s first flight, when SpaceX received the full approval, they scheduled the flight to take place only 3 days later, no earlier than April 17th. On the 17th, SpaceX planned to launch and tried but scrubbed the first attempt. They then managed to launch a few days later on the 20th, less than a week after receiving approval. We can expect a very similar process here where approval is announced either by SpaceX or the FAA and that will determine the launch date, a few days later.
For this next launch, quite a few things have changed between Stage 0, the rocket, and even the flight profile. These changes are hoping to result in a fully successful integrated flight test. Since SpaceX began developing Starship, they have made a lot of prototypes of both the Booster, and the upper stage. Over time the company has tested these prototypes in different ways from pressure tests to actual flight attempts. The point being, each new prototype was a better version of the previous, using lessons learned from various tests. The first launch earlier this year was with Booster 7 and Ship 24. At that point, SpaceX knew that these specific prototypes were capable, however, because of the iteration speed at Starbase, they weren’t even the most advanced test articles available.
To put it in perspective, before the first launch, in an interview, Elon was quoted saying, “We are actually dying to get this rocket off no matter what happens to it because there are so many improvements between booster 7 and booster 9, literally hundreds.” In other words, even before the launch of Booster 7, SpaceX already had a more advanced prototype with hundreds of upgrades. Now, when you combine this with the extra changes made after the first launch and all the data that was produced, you have a rocket with over 1000 changes.
On the first flight, during ascent, the vehicle sustained fires from leaking propellant in the aft end of the Super Heavy booster, which eventually severed connection with the vehicle’s primary flight computer. This led to a loss of communications to the majority of booster engines and, ultimately, control of the vehicle. SpaceX has since implemented leak mitigations and improved testing on both engine and booster hardware. As an additional corrective action, SpaceX has significantly expanded Super Heavy’s pre-existing fire suppression system in order to mitigate against future engine bay fires.
Looking back on the first flight, it was revealed not long after that another big issue had to do with the flight termination system. Specifically, SpaceX had commanded the activation of the FTS long before it finally activated. In a statement they commented, “After an unexpected delay following AFSS activation, Starship ultimately broke up 237.474 seconds after engine ignition. SpaceX has enhanced and requalified the AFSS to improve system reliability.”
The company continued by pointing out, “SpaceX is also implementing a full suite of system performance upgrades unrelated to any issues observed during the first flight test. For example, SpaceX has built and tested a hot-stage separation system, in which Starship’s second stage engines will ignite to push the ship away from the booster. Additionally, SpaceX has engineered a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines. Using fully electric motors, the new system has fewer potential points of failure and is significantly more energy efficient than traditional hydraulic systems” they said.
After Starship’s first integrated test flight, Elon said, “The big things that are important for the next flight are, ensuring that we don’t lose thrust vector control, so isolating that thrust vector control. With Booster 9 that is a lot easier because we use electric motors to steer the engines as opposed to hydraulic actuators where you have a common manifold between the hydraulic actuators. In this case, if you lose hydraulic pressure you can lose multiple engines. The electrically actuated engines will be much more isolated and not have like a single event failure as long as they don’t lose power or coms” he said. These quotes highlight some of the company’s and Elon’s thought processes on the first test article and the upgrades made. If everything goes as planned, not long from now we will see all these different upgrades working together during a new test flight.
Conclusion
SpaceX is getting very close to the second launch of Starship. Yesterday, they received official approval for the safety review related to this launch. While they still need approval on the environmental side, it’s expected to be completed within a week or two. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.