Breaking: FAA granted license for SpaceX Starship Flight 5

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted SpaceX a license to conduct the Starship test flight 5 mission from the Boca Chica launch facility.

“SpaceX is authorized, subject to the provisions of 51 U.S.C Subtitle V, chapter 509, and the orders, rules and the regulations issued under it, to conduct launches of the Starship-Super Heavy vehicle,” wrote FAA in the license approval.

SpaceX is speculating this mission to fly on Sunday, October 13 and there are backup launch opportunities from Monday onwards.

This mission aims to recover the first stage with launch tower arms. For that, the company has thousands of upgrades and could pluck the vehicle in the air after the booster maintains its landing trajectory

Following a landing burn, the booster will slow down and the tower arms will deploy to catch the booster in mid-air. The company also has a fail-safe plan for booster recovery if anything goes wrong at the very last moment of performing catch maneuvers.

On the other hand, the Starship spacecraft will take its journey with reentry to the next phase with new heat shield tiles.

FAA granted license for SpaceX Starship Flight 5 (Source – FAA)

These are designed with thicker material and enable the spacecraft to endure more heat during decent. However, SpaceX aims to improve the splash zone accuracy with this new flight test.

You can check more information about the mission in our Starship archive here.

Finally Approved

SpaceX announced Starship Flight 5 readiness in August this year and waiting for flight approval since then. However, it was later confirmed that the agency could delay the license to November.

Somehow, the agency sped up the verification process of Starship 5 launch license and approved it today.

(source)