SpaceX gets green light for seventh Starship mission 

Regulators have given SpaceX the go-ahead to launch Starship for the seventh time, although the company has not yet announced when that mission may take place. 

While the exact launch date is unclear, SpaceX engineers have been as busy as ever at the company’s massive launch site near Boca Chica, Texas. In recent days, the company performed test fires of the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage (which is also called Starship), though the two stages have yet to be stacked at the launch tower. The most recent Starship test took place on November 19 with president-elect Donald Trump as a guest.

This is the only time that the launch license from FAA has not been immediately followed by a launch date announcement — and the regulator did not shy away from highlighting how quickly it moved the license modification forward. 

“The FAA continues to increase efficiencies in our licensing determination activities to meet the needs of the commercial space transportation industry,” FAA associate administrator Kelvin B. Coleman said in a statement. “This license modification that we are issuing is well ahead of the Starship Flight 7 launch date and is another example of the FAA’s commitment to enable safe space transportation.”

SpaceX has been increasingly vocal about its grievances with the regulator, and many of its complaints have centered around the “superfluous” regulatory delays that have held up the Starship test program. In September, the company said in a lengthly blog post that the licensing process for Starship has been “repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd.” 

Starship is the largest rocket ever built, standing at nearly 400 feet and generating around 3.3 million pounds of thrust at take-off. It is the centerpiece of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ambition to make humans multi-planetary. Musk has previously said that he’s aiming to launch an uncrewed Starship to Mars as early as 2026.