SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that he hopes to launch his gigantic Starship rocket by January. Musk's target is still tentative given that it is still subject to regulatory approval and further testing of the company's biggest, tallest, and most powerful rocket to date.
While speaking at a meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Space Studies Board, Musk said they would be conducting further testing in December and "hopefully" launch the rocket by January.
Musk said he wasn't a hundred percent confident that the rocket would reach orbit on the first try. He added that he is "confident" that the rocket would reach space within the year at least. Unlike other space companies, SpaceX is much bolder in attempting launches of its rocket with extremely tight deadlines. This has resulted in many failures throughout the years, which were then followed by successful launches.
Musk said that they plan to conduct as many as a dozen launches of the Starship rocket next year. He plans to conduct commercial launches with "real payloads" by 2023.
Musk emphasized that establishing a mass production line for Starship is critical to the program's long-term objectives, stating that the company's current challenge in rocket manufacturing is how quickly it can construct the Raptor engines required for the rocket.
"I think, in order for life to become multi-planetary, we'll need maybe 1,000 ships or something like that. The overarching goal of SpaceX has been to advance space technology such that humanity can become a multi-planet species and, ultimately, a spacefaring civilization," Musk said.
SpaceX's Starship rocket is the company's next-generation spacecraft, created to launch both people and cargo in missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond. So far, the company has only conducted short test flights of a prototype at its facility in southern Texas. SpaceX is aiming to conduct an orbital launch when the rocket is ready.
Similar to its other rockets, SpaceX designed the Starship rocket to be fully reusable. Both the vehicle's rockets and boosters are capable of landing after launch. The company's Falcon 9 rockets are only partially reusable. The boosters can land and be reused, but not the rocket's top part or stage.
Before it can launch its Starship rocket, SpaceX has to obtain a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration. The regulator has to conduct a review of the mission, which will include an environmental assessment that is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
