SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that the huge Starship vehicle will be ready to fly again in two months.
SpaceX also released a dramatic video recapping the first flight of a starship. On April 20, the first flight test of SpaceX’s fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket, built to take humanity to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, lifted off successfully.
It, however, exploded and failed to reach orbit.
“Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on the pad, then flight 2 of Starship,” Musk said in his latest tweet.
The rocket launch had come under the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scanner for reportedly spreading plumes of potentially hazardous debris endangering human lives as well as the habitats of animals.
This means that before Starship’s next launch, it would need the regulator’s clean chit that the rocket will not affect public safety.
A slew of environmental groups also sued the FAA for failing to address the dangers of SpaceX’s Starship rocket launch, which can harm “crucial habitats, putting imperiled wildlife at great risk and harming community interests”.
SpaceX has reportedly roped in NASA’s former head of human spaceflight Kathy Lueders to help in its Starship launch.
She will work out of SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. She will report directly to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell, according to reports.
After a 31-year career at NASA, Lueders retired from the space agency at the end of April, as associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).
Her career at NASA also included stints on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) programs.
