SpaceX's Texas launch site will receive approval to launch by March, says Elon Musk

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said that he is hopeful that company's Texas launch site will receive federal approval to launch "the largest flying object of any kind" by March.

Musk's update on the Starship program since 2019, was delivered from a stage at Starbase, where he stood in front of a crowd of SpaceX employees, reports The Verge.

Musk, highly confident that Starship will reach orbit this year, also demonstrated a new video of Starship's potential at the event.

Designed to take people and cargo to the Moon, Mars and other distant destinations in space, the rocket has been in the making for more than two years and, in May 2021, reached an altitude of 10 kms before landing safely.

Musk said that in the future, Starships could be built every three days.

Late last year, Musk, in an email to SpaceX employees, asked them to work over the weekend on the Raptor engine as the company faces "genuine risk of bankruptcy" unless it speeds up the production.

"Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago," Musk reportedly wrote.

SpaceX is waiting for regulatory approvals from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to fly Starship to orbit.

The company has raised billions in funding over the past several years, both for Starship and its satellite internet project Starlink.

(With inputs from IANS)

Published on: Saturday, February 12, 2022, 03:25 PM IST