The Federal Aviation Administration FAA said this week Starship will need additional time to work on a major environmental review before granting a launch license to SpaceX for its first orbital flight.
“Due to the high volume of comments posted, the FAA has made an update to the program as consultations and consultations will take place with consulting parties,” the agency said in an announcement. The FAA gave the launch permission for the Starship, which will be sent into space with the Super Heavy rocket, for December 31. In this case, if there is no change, this date has been postponed to February 28, 2022.
SpaceX has made several test flights of the Starship upper stage before, but the Super Heavy rocket has yet to be tested. The two make up the spacecraft that Musk plans to use to take astronauts to and from the Moon and Mars.
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SpaceX did not comment on questions asked about procrastination.
Musk initially said that he aimed to land humans on Mars in 2024, and even announced this intention again in December 2020, but revised the date to 2026. There is a possibility that this date will change again, as there have been some problems in the production of the new generation Raptor engines used by Starship. Earlier this year, Musk also said that if Starship does not depart soon, it may face the risk of bankruptcy.
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