The government gives the most powerful rocket ever made by SpaceX permission to launch

SpaceX has cleared the final regulatory hurdle standing before the inaugural launch of its Starship rocket, the most powerful rocket ever constructed. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, has granted the company’s request for an uncrewed flight test of the rocket out of the SpaceX facilities in South Texas. This will be SpaceX’s first attempt to put Starship into orbit, building on a yearslong testing campaign to work out the design of the rocket. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked about Starship for about a decade, making elaborate presentations about its design and describing it as the vehicle that underpins SpaceX’s founding purpose: sending humans to Mars for the first time. NASA has already awarded SpaceX contracts and options worth more than $3 billion.

The inaugural flight test will not complete a full orbit around Earth, but it will reach orbital speeds and travel about 150 miles above Earth’s surface, well into altitudes deemed to be outer space. Starship consists of two parts: On this flight, the rocket booster will be discarded into the ocean shortly after liftoff. SpaceX has been waiting more than a year to get FAA approval SpaceX has cleared the final regulatory hurdle standing before the inaugural launch of its Starship rocket, the most powerful rocket ever constructed. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, has granted the company’s request for an uncrewed flight test of the rocket out of the SpaceX facilities in South Texas. This will be SpaceX’s first attempt to put Starship into orbit, building on a yearslong testing campaign to work out the design of the rocket.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked about Starship for about a decade, making elaborate presentations about its design and describing it as the vehicle that underpins SpaceX’s founding purpose: sending humans to Mars for the first time. NASA has already awarded SpaceX contracts and options worth more than $3 billion. The inaugural flight test will not complete a full orbit around Earth, but it will reach orbital speeds and travel about 150 miles above Earth’s surface, well into altitudes deemed to be outer space. Starship consists of two parts: On this flight, the rocket booster will be discarded into the ocean shortly after liftoff. SpaceX has been waiting more than a year to get FAA approval