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SpaceX's Starship gets all clear for Texas takeoff

DannyB writes:

FAA grants license to fly, though not fry local wildlife:

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given SpaceX clearance to try launching the monster Starship / Super Heavy combo from the company's Boca Chica facility.

It has taken some time, at least in terms of the rapid iterative approach adopted by the company for its other vehicles. Still, SpaceX is set for another attempt seven months after April's effort.

Residing at the bottom of an FAA advisory are three possible dates for flight two of the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy. The primary date is November 17, with backup dates on November 18 and 19.

The FAA grounded SpaceX's Starship after the rocket demolished a chunk of its launchpad and scattered debris over the surrounding area. The launch was aborted a few minutes into flight, although there was a worrying delay between the red button being pushed and the tumbling rocket detonating.

See Also:
YouTube video: Musk Confirms License: Starship To Launch Friday!

Watch SpaceX's Starship Launch for 2nd Time Ever on Nov. 18

upstart writes:

Liftoff is scheduled for Nov. 17, during a two-hour window that opens at 8 a.m. ET:

Update for 3 pm ET: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the second Starship launch is postponed to no earlier than Saturday, Nov. 18 to replace a grid fin actuator on the launch stack.

SpaceX plans to launch its Starship vehicle for the second time ever on Friday (Nov. 17), and you can watch the historic liftoff live.

SpaceX aims to launch Starship, a next-generation system designed to take people and payloads to deep space, on Friday during a two-hour window that opens at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT). Liftoff will occur from Starbase, the company's site in coastal South Texas.

You can watch the action here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin at 7:30 a.m. EST (1230 GMT).

Backup launch windows run on Saturday (Nov. 18) and Sunday (Nov. 19), according to multiple media reports citing U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advisories.

[...] Should Starship get safely into space this time, the expected 90-minute flight will see the spacecraft fly east over the Gulf of Mexico, make a partial circuit of Earth and splash down near Hawaii. Starship and Super Heavy are reusable systems, but this time SpaceX will aim for a simple splashdown in the ocean rather than landing vertically, as the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets commonly do.

Technically speaking, Starship won't quite do a full orbit of the planet, but its expected flight should bring it to a near-orbital velocity of 17,500 mph (28,160 kph) at an altitude of 150 miles (250 kilometers).

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