SpaceX lands FAA license for next Starship megarocket launch on June 6

SpaceX conducts a fueling test with its Starship vehicle on May 28, 2024.
SpaceX conducts a fueling test with its Starship vehicle on May 28, 2024. The company received an FAA launch license for a June 6 test flight. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

SpaceX's next Starship megarocket officially has a license to fly. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday (June 4) issued a launch license to SpaceX for its Starship Flight 4 test mission, which is currently scheduled to lift off no earlier than Thursday, June 6, from the company's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. 

"The FAA has approved a license authorization for SpaceX Starship Flight 4," FAA officials wrote in a statement. "SpaceX met all safety and other licensing requirements for this test flight."

Related: SpaceX targeting June 6 for next launch of Starship megarocket (photos)

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As its name suggests, SpaceX's Starship Flight 4 mission is the fourth test flight of the company's Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle. When fully assembled, they stand nearly 400 feet tall and are the world's largest and most powerful rocket. SpaceX has designed Starship as a fully reusable ultra-heavy lift launch system for missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. NASA's Artemis program, for one, has selected Starship as the lander to carry Artemis 3 astronauts to the south pole of the moon in 2026.

But before Starship can fly to the moon, SpaceX has to prove the shiny, stainless steel rocket can reach orbit. 

The company has flown three test flights to date: A failed debut in April 2023 that destroyed SpaceX's launch pad as well as the rocket; a second flight in November of that year that also failed to reach space; and the latest Starship Flight 3 launch on March 18 of this year, which reached space for the first time before the vehicle and its Super Heavy booster were lost prior to reaching their final splashdown targets.

SpaceX's giant Starship rocket on the pad at Starbase, the company's site in South Texas, in June 2024 ahead of a planned test flight. (Image credit: Elon Musk via X)

After each Starship launch test, the FAA conducted time-consuming failure investigations and made recommendations that SpaceX had to address before each subsequent launch attempt. For Starship Flight 4, SpaceX and the FAA have agreed on a different approach. 

"As part of its request for license modification, SpaceX proposed three scenarios involving the Starship entry that would not require an investigation in the event of the loss of the vehicle. The FAA approved the scenarios as test induced damage exceptions after evaluating them as part of the flight safety and flight hazard analyses and confirming they met public safety requirements," FAA officials said in the statement. "If a different anomaly occurs with the Starship vehicle an investigation may be warranted as well as if an anomaly occurs with the Super Heavy booster rocket."

That agreement suggests SpaceX has identified three likely ways in which its Starship or Super Heavy could fail (such as loss during reentry) that the company and FAA agreed wouldn't need a lengthy investigation. The three scenarios did not appear to be detailed in the FAA's 6-page launch license.

For Flight 4, SpaceX aims to fly its Starship and Super Heavy booster on a similar trajectory as its Flight 3 test, a mission that would launch the Starship vehicle up to orbital velocity, then reenter the craft over the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, is expected to return toward South Texas and make a controlled "landing" in the Gulf of Mexico.

"The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy," SpaceX wrote in a mission overview." The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship."

In recent weeks, SpaceX has performed a series of fueling tests for both the Flight 4 Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Both vehicles apparently passed with flying colors. 

"Starship is ready to fly," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday (June 3). 

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Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.

  • ndsurvivor
    I find it exciting that we may have a re-usable, heavy duty spaceship soon. I think one of the two will make the landing. The next flight.. it can be re-used, but will probably sit in a museum.

    For only the cost of some fuel, and minor refurbishment, major loads can be launched. This seems so much more interesting than the space shuttle to me. That seemed like an old tech thing, and much of that was expendable and not rapidly reusable.

    If SpaceX makes Starship and the Superheavy like the Falcon 9, we will be on the way to truly colonizing space.
    Reply
  • Philly
    Well the thing that is really exciting is unlike the very limited Apollo program, which the main objective was just to land on the Moon, snap some pics grab some rocks and come back in a few days. before 1970. The tech was a dead end and extremely expensive.

    With a system like Starship we looking at the capabilities to actually land 50-100 tons on the surface of the Moon/Mars multiple times. Orbital refueling is the only way to do this. Physics limits you. along with the basic financial limits of reality. You can only throw away so many billion dollar rockets and only use them once. Musk isn't a genius about this, just realistic.

    Why anyone is still developing throw away rockets is beyond me. Also orbital refueling is a necessary for anything beyond LEO that isn't a small probe. Not bashing Apollo but it's technical objectives should NOT drive our goals 50+ years later. We should NOT be striving for a reenactment.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    Really glad to read about the FAA agreeing on a set of mission objective failures that would not be considered "mishaps" and insert unnecessary government bureaucracy into what is supposed to be an engineering development project.

    But, I would rather see a strategy where the FAA needs to show that there actually was a public safety aspect of any system failure before they get involved. That is actually the intent of their enabling legislation.

    SpaceX does the actual work of investigating and reengineering, not the FAA anyway. So, the added FAA involvement is a redundant review that takes time and money for SpaceX to support. All the FAA should be doing is making sure that the flight plans do not cause unacceptable risk levels to the public (inside and beyond the U.S.) and making sure that the actual performance of the craft did not go outside of the parameters already deemed safe enough. In that sense, I have not seen anything about the 3rd flight test that could logically be designate as a "mishap" that caused unanticipated danger to the public anywhere.
    Reply
  • DrRaviSharma
    Starship should close the gap and reach operational type performance this time, We wish them a success.
    Would that mean multiple orbits, successful reuse and what else?
    Ravi
    (Dr. Ravi Sharma, Ph.D. USA)
    NASA Apollo Achievement Award
    ISRO Distinguished Service Awards
    Former MTS NASA HQ MSEB Apollo
    Former Scientific Secretary ISRO HQ
    Ontolog Board of Trustees
    Particle and Space Physics
    Senior Enterprise Architect

    SAE Fuel Cell Tech Committee voting member for 20 years.

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/drravisharma
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    Well, total success would be the safe landing and quick re-use of both the booster and Starship, plus refueling in space, and all at a cost that is better than the competition. And, it would need demonstration of a failure rate low enough to be crew rated by the government.

    I think SpaceX still has a ways to go to get to that level. I think that landing Starship in the chopsticks is going to be the ultimate test of the process, coming back from orbit, not just a "hop". A big goof there causes a very large infrastructure loss, and there are only a few of those in the system. Starship's heat shield is another big question mark at this point.

    And, I am not seeing a good reason to have Starships go from the surface of Earth to the surface of the Moon and all the way back, rather than having variants that are optimized for earth's surface to orbit, earth orbit to lunar orbit, and lunar orbit to lunar surface (and back). Why land an airframe and heat shield on the moon and then launch it back to earth's surface on every trip? The only reason would be to avoid the braking propellant costs for settling back into low earth orbit instead of hitting the atmosphere at 35,000 miles per hour. IF refueling works, then I think purpose-designed variants of Starship will be forthcoming for both cost and reliability issues.
    Reply
  • skynr13
    Philly said:
    Well the thing that is really exciting is unlike the very limited Apollo program, which the main objective was just to land on the Moon, snap some pics grab some rocks and come back in a few days. before 1970. The tech was a dead end and extremely expensive.

    With a system like Starship we looking at the capabilities to actually land 50-100 tons on the surface of the Moon/Mars multiple times. Orbital refueling is the only way to do this. Physics limits you. along with the basic financial limits of reality. You can only throw away so many billion dollar rockets and only use them once. Musk isn't a genius about this, just realistic.

    Why anyone is still developing throw away rockets is beyond me. Also orbital refueling is a necessary for anything beyond LEO that isn't a small probe. Not bashing Apollo but it's technical objectives should NOT drive our goals 50+ years later. We should NOT be striving for a reenactment.
    I don't think the Appollo tech was a dead-end and was expensive only that they invented on the fly, much like today. And still developing throw away rockets is required to invent something new, just like Elon does with Starship now. Do you think everything is made with a snap of the fingers?
    Reply
  • skynr13
    Unclear Engineer said:
    Really glad to read about the FAA agreeing on a set of mission objective failures that would not be considered "mishaps" and insert unnecessary government bureaucracy into what is supposed to be an engineering development project.

    But, I would rather see a strategy where the FAA needs to show that there actually was a public safety aspect of any system failure before they get involved. That is actually the intent of their enabling legislation.

    SpaceX does the actual work of investigating and reengineering, not the FAA anyway. So, the added FAA involvement is a redundant review that takes time and money for SpaceX to support. All the FAA should be doing is making sure that the flight plans do not cause unacceptable risk levels to the public (inside and beyond the U.S.) and making sure that the actual performance of the craft did not go outside of the parameters already deemed safe enough. In that sense, I have not seen anything about the 3rd flight test that could logically be designate as a "mishap" that caused unanticipated danger to the public anywhere.
    I think it is more of a dangerous and FAA necessary thing than you suspect. Just launching this Starship is a danger considering how new and untested it is. But I do realize reducing the lengthy involvement of the FAA is important to get more tests done of Starship and quickly reaching the goal of Mars colonization.
    Reply
  • skynr13
    DrRaviSharma said:
    Starship should close the gap and reach operational type performance this time, We wish them a success.
    Would that mean multiple orbits, successful reuse and what else?
    Ravi
    (Dr. Ravi Sharma, Ph.D. USA)
    NASA Apollo Achievement Award
    ISRO Distinguished Service Awards
    Former MTS NASA HQ MSEB Apollo
    Former Scientific Secretary ISRO HQ
    Ontolog Board of Trustees
    Particle and Space Physics
    Senior Enterprise Architect

    SAE Fuel Cell Tech Committee voting member for 20 years.

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/drravisharma
    We can only hope for operational type performance for this test. Falcon 9 went through many more tests before it had a real mission. Also, if you were to say, what would be a good test line for Starship? Something like reaching orbit 10 times with each being reusable? Or more or less?
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    I think FAA was somewhat surprised by the problems with flight #1, and I agree with them that they needed to take another look at the risks. But, once the did that, flights 2 and 3 did not seem to produce any more risk than anticipated.

    And, remember, there are explosive charges in both stages that are INTENDED to make them explode wherever they might be if they appear to be headed outside the flight envelope that was approved in advance. So whatever damage that self-destruct signal could cause is already part of the safety assessment. What was particularly troubling about flight #1 is that those charges did not seem to work as designed. So, there was some concern that the vehicles might have gone outside the flight envelope that the FAA approved. But, flight 2 proved that the redesigned self-destructs worked, and flight 3 did not need them and went where planned - it is just that Starship came apart during reentry. apparently due to lack of sufficient roll control. That did not increase the danger to the public. As Musk said, what was launched did not do anything that non-reusable launch vehicles don't do routinely - i.e. get destroyed.
    Reply
  • DrRaviSharma
    skynr13 said:
    We can only hope for operational type performance for this test. Falcon 9 went through many more tests before it had a real mission. Also, if you were to say, what would be a good test line for Starship? Something like reaching orbit 10 times with each being reusable? Or more or less?
    I agree, more or less a number of successful cargo delivery or refueling robotic but non-human crewed flights before declaring it operational.
    I thought STARSHIP was to be used for Lunar Gateway to Lunar Landing purposes. This would be in addition to only few planned Artemis ULA flights planned. But other uses indicated by Unclear Engineer and others are welcome if they happen to qualify along the way.
    Reliable low-cost and repeatable missions will make the rest happen if we do not cause any risks as we did by suppressing Columbia launch anomaly information.
    Thanks.
    Ravi
    (Dr. Ravi Sharma, Ph.D. USA)
    NASA Apollo Achievement Award
    ISRO Distinguished Service Awards
    Former MTS NASA HQ MSEB Apollo
    Former Scientific Secretary ISRO HQ
    Ontolog Board of Trustees
    Particle and Space Physics
    Senior Enterprise Architect
    SAE Fuel Cell Tech Committee voting member for 20 years.
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/drravisharma
    Reply