U.s., Primate

San Francisco, April 5 The much awaited first orbital flight of SpaceX's Starship could lift off as early as April 10, however, some barriers remain, according to media reports.SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, in mid-March, said that the landmark flight might launch as soon as the third week of April. But recent developments suggest that the attempt could come even sooner than that.The new date comes as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an air traffic advisory identifying April 10 as a primary launch date, TechCrunch reported.In addition, Musk liked a tweet that simply reads "April 10" with a GIF of a rocket launching.SpaceX has also rolled its Ship 24 out to Starbase's orbital launch pad over the weekend. And on Monday, the company also conducted fueling tests with Booster 7 on the orbital launch mount, with Ship 24 on the ground nearby, Space.com reported.However, the FAA is yet to issue a launch licence to SpaceX.According to Ars Technica science editor Eric Berger, there is also a very real possibility of a civil suit being filed over environmental issues immediately following the issuance of the launch licence.In this case, a judge would have the power to issue a temporary injunction blocking the flight test until that civil suit is resolved, he wrote on Twitter.Starship consists of a giant first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 50 metres upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship. Both stainless-steel vehicles are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's next-gen Raptor engine 33 for Super Heavy and six for Starship.NASA is also reserving "the use of its high-altitude WB-57 aircraft for observations of the Starship test flight on April 10 and 11", Berger said in a report."The agency is closely tracking SpaceX's progress with the massive rocket, as it intends to use the Starship vehicle as a lunar lander for its astronauts as part of the Artemis moon missions," he addedThe test flight will launch Ship 24 for one lap around Earth, culminating with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

U.s.FOLLOW

U.s., Latest News

Detroit (Michigan) [US], April 6 : Stellantis' Ram is raising the bar for its Detroit competitors in the electric-truck ... ...

Charleston [US], April 6 : No.12 seeded Paula Badosa defeated Leylah Fernandez to reach the third round of the ... ...

San Francisco, April 5 Meta's cloud gaming service Facebook Gaming has announced that users can now play their ... ...

Chennai, April 5 Gold prices went up slightly on Wednesday, with spot prices at Comex up by 0.05 ... ...

Washington [US], April 5 : Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao is set to direct a feature based on Maggie O'Farrell's ... ...

Paris, April 5 A team of astronomers used the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia spacecraft to discover two ... ...

Washington [US], April 5 : Lionsgate locks summer release for 'John Wick' spinoff 'Ballerina' The action drama 'John Wick' ... ...

San Francisco, April 5 The much awaited first orbital flight of SpaceX's Starship could lift off as early ... ...