SpaceX asks FAA to launch prototype of spacecraft 20 kilometers away

• SpaceX has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the experimental launches of its reusable Starship rocket system.
• The presentation requests permission to track and communicate with the Starship prototypes as they fly up to 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) in the air from SpaceX’s rocket development facility in Boca Chica, Texas, between August and February.
• SpaceX obtained a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on May 28 to fly the vehicles, but the company, founded by Elon Musk, also needs the FCC’s permission.
• Musk recently said he still hopes to launch the first humans to Mars aboard a Starship rocket in mid-2024.
• Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.

SpaceX expects to launch prototypes of its Starship rocket more than a dozen miles high in the next seven months, according to the FCC filing.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of the aerospace company, is urgently competing to develop Starship, a fully reusable rocket system that is designed to one day land on the moon for NASA and bring up to 100 people to Mars at once.

In early June, shortly after SpaceX successfully launched two astronauts to the International Space Station using a different rocket, Musk was reported to have urged employees to shift their focus to Starship. Aerial photos also show a frantic surge in activity at the company’s rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas.

Now, the company has filed a request with the FCC to use certain radio frequencies while launching Starship prototypes of up to 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) in the air. The filing, released Thursday, specifies that launch operations would occur between August 18, 2020 and February 18, 2021.

On May 28, the FAA granted SpaceX a launch license for Starship prototype suborbital flights. However, SpaceX cannot feasibly fly those vehicles until the FCC grants you permission to use the required frequencies to track and communicate with them. (The FCC often quickly grants such permission to SpaceX.)

Testing a reusable steel rocket can fly and land has not been easy

RGV aerial photography

A large-scale 16-story spacecraft prototype has not yet flown, though an earlier, shorter version of the rocket known as the Starhopper successfully launched at 500 feet above ground and landed in 2019.

Since then, the most advanced but still early iterations of the Starship prototypes have failed and were erased during testing, usually when engineers filled the rockets with inert liquid nitrogen to test the limits of their integrity.

During a launch test of the recent Starship prototype called SN4 in Boca Chica on May 29, the vehicle exploded catastrophically. The failure occurred the day before astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley mounted the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS with the help of a different SpaceX rocket, Falcon 9. (That launcher successfully flew 85 missions before sending Behnken and Hurley into space).

LabPadre / YouTube

However, such failures are anything but unexpected, as SpaceX saw with the development of core technologies for its Falcon 9 system. Musk also said the company may need to build about 20 large Starship prototypes before SpaceX can attempt to launch one. in orbit.

Musk confirmed on June 4 that he still hoped to launch the first crew to Mars in a spacecraft vehicle in mid-2024, apparently as the start of an effort to populate the red planet.

Although SpaceX is licensed to launch suborbital rockets from Boca Chica, the Border Report recently revealed that the company is facing a new environmental review with the FAA before flying prototypes into orbit.

Business Insider requested details of the nature and timing of that assessment from the FAA on July 15, and an agency spokesperson acknowledged receipt of our questions. However, the FAA has yet to provide responses to such inquiries.

This story has been updated.