SpaceX Predicts the 1st Orbital Starship Flight for March

Earlier in February, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX could be ready for a Starship orbital flight as soon as March. It’s the first Starship update in over two years, and the announcement brought lots of excitement among space enthusiasts.

Predictions for the First Starship Rocket Launch

Elon Musk admitted that some failures related to the Starship orbital flight are anticipated. However, he’s confident that by the end of 2022, Space X will get Starship in orbit. The announcement came from SpaceX’s Texas spaceport, where Musk was standing next to the 119-metre Starship while urging the crowd to join his company in making it real. “This is really some wild stuff here,” he said. “In fact, hard to believe it’s real.” – are Elon Musk’s exact words while talking about the Starship plans.

NASA’s Plans for the Starship

The success of the Starship project is not crucial only for Space X in its mission to lead innovation in the space sector. NASA intends to use the reusable rocket to take its astronauts on a mission to the moon before 2025.

However, until everything works perfectly, the first flights will carry Starlink satellites. This is actually the strategy to iron out any bumps that may appear on the road. The satellite cargo allows SpaceX to run several tests and cargo missions before switching to the human crew.

Before it can continue with Starship’s next phase, Space X needs Federal Aviation Administration approval. It’s expected that the approval from the FAA will come in March, and Musk thinks all the rocket launch preparations for the first rocket launch should be over by then.

The company estimates that the cost of a launch should be around $10 million. It’s all about the flight rate in establishing the per launch price. If there’s a high demand and the rocket flies more often, the cost could go down to a few million, as stated by Elon Musk. SpaceX can already count on a private customer for its Starship – an entrepreneur from Japan already booked a flight that will get him to the moon and back.