SpaceX Successfully Concludes Much

SpaceX just concluded a mostly-successful static fire test of its Starship Super Heavy Booster 9. This is positive news for SpaceX after the perceived setback of its Starship orbital test in April—which ended with the triggering of the flight termination system after the Starship/Booster stack was unable to achieve stage separation—suggesting that SpaceX may be able to get Starship development back on track, which may be pivotal to the future of the company.

SpaceX’s previous orbital test of Starship became notorious due to the effects it had on the launch pad. Unlike most other pads, the Starship pad didn’t have a flame trench, flame deflector, or a sound suppression system. The concrete of the pad was superheated and quickly destroyed in what SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called a “rock tornado,” causing damage to the Booster’s Raptor 2 engines that may have resulted in the mission scrub, as well as spreading particulate matter for miles. As Lone Star chapter director for the Sierra Club Dave Cortez told CNBC, “Concrete shot out into the ocean, and risked hitting the fuel storage tanks which are these silos adjacent to the launch pad.”

In order to prevent further mishaps, SpaceX has created a radically rebuilt “stage zero” launch pad, which replaces the concrete under the Booster with a steel plate and a water deluge system intended to reduce or eliminate noise, debris, and damage to the pad. Footage of the booster test showed the deluge and Super Heavy Booster combined to create immense clouds of steam, with both the pad and the booster appearing to remain in reasonably good repair. SpaceX tested the engines for 2.7 seconds, down from the planned 5-second test duration. Four of the engines shut down prematurely.

Nevertheless, the comments by SpaceX on the video said that “the pad looks good [and] the launch vehicle looks good … that moves us another step closer to our next flight test.”

This is much-needed good news for SpaceX. Launches by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket have steadily increased in frequency and reliability, and it has been called “the safest rocket ever launched.” But while the Falcon 9 is the foundation on which the company’s current success has been built, getting Starship into orbit is critical to the company’s future in a variety of ways.

Most immediately, the company needs Starship in order to fully realize its vision for the Starlink constellation. With the exploding consumer demand for Starlink service, and its increasing visibility in the national security space following its adoption by Ukrainian forces, the load on the existing constellation is only getting larger. Yet while Falcon 9 continues to deliver Starlink satellites into orbit, the company has said that its real vision for Starlink will only be fulfilled when it can start putting its next-generation V2 satellites in orbit.

The V2 satellites will feature optical satellite-to-satellite communications, decreasing space-to-ground bandwidth load as well as reliance on terrestrial fiber optic links, along with a variety of other upgrades. They’re also far larger than the existing satellites, however, rendering Falcon 9s impractical as launchers. SpaceX is waiting on Starship before it can start putting these V2s into orbit and service.

While SpaceX has introduced “mini V2” satellites with enhanced capabilities in the meantime, Starship is still central to Starlink’s future as a constellation and a service.

Also in the near future, Starship is intended to play a pivotal role in humanity’s return to the Moon. Starship is still slated to serve as the Human Landing System (HLS) for Artemis astronauts as they return to the moon in the Artemis III mission.

Even so, however, NASA (and the other Artemis space agencies) will not proceed with the mission until they can be certain that Starship is up to the job. NASA is quite clear that Starship must fly “at least one uncrewed demo mission that lands Starship on the lunar surface,” and will only move forward “when Starship has met all of NASA’s requirements and high standards for crew safety.”

As we move into the fall of 2023, Starship’s testing delays are raising questions as to whether SpaceX can meet that challenge on time. NASA has already said that it’s weighing its options on Artemis III, even if the mission slips to 2026.

In turn, Musk has made it clear that he sees Starship as the backbone of not only his Martian ambitions but of the development of LEO infrastructure. Musk has said that Starship’s combination of size and reusability could put a million tons of cargo into space every year, and dramatically reduce costs to a little over $20 for each pound of payload on board. If successful, the effect this would have on the space sector is difficult to overstate, and it might well be a pivotal moment in history. At the moment, however, the “if” remains in question.

SpaceX faces several hurdles before it can try to test Starship again, as SpaceX will still need to settle environmental issues stemming from both the flight test and this latest attempt to resolve its issues. A report last month from the San Antonio Express-News revealed that the FAA is “still awaiting the report it needs to identify corrective actions SpaceX must take to get the OK to launch again from Boca Chica,” with an agency spokesperson saying that “[t]he FAA will not allow a return to flight operations until it determines that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety or any other aspect of the operator’s license,” and that the investigation is “ongoing.”

The company also faces potentially serious legal hurdles over environmental issues. SpaceX and the FAA are co-defendants in a federal lawsuit over the Starship launch program. Plaintiffs (which include the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas and the Center for Biological Diversity among others) allege that there should be further environmental assessments of the launches—which would delay Starship testing for years—and that the testing may cause “significant adverse effects” to both endangered species and to Indigenous people in the area.

SpaceX and the FAA have filed to have the suit dismissed, with the FAA saying that the groups lack legal standing and SpaceX saying that the company “passed an environmental assessment and complied with FAA-required mitigations.”

The newly-tested water deluge system, intended to prevent a repeat of the “rock tornado” that helped cause the controversy, may itself create complications on the environmental issue. CNBC learned that, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), “the company never applied for the environmental permits that would allow it to discharge industrial process wastewater into the area surrounding the launchpad.”

At the moment, however, a TCEQ spokesperson told CNBC that “‘no determination’ has been made as to whether the activity violated environmental laws,” and that “[t]he agency is currently evaluating the use of the pressurized water system as part of SpaceX launch operations to see if state environmental regulations apply or were violated.”

Craig is a graduate of Carleton’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, focused on conflict studies.