{"id":22250,"date":"2022-03-22T23:51:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T15:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-targeting-may-for-starship-orbital-flight-booster-4-and-ship-20-wont-see-space\/"},"modified":"2022-03-22T23:51:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T15:51:36","slug":"spacex-targeting-may-for-starship-orbital-flight-booster-4-and-ship-20-wont-see-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-targeting-may-for-starship-orbital-flight-booster-4-and-ship-20-wont-see-space\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX targeting May for Starship orbital flight, Booster 4 and Ship 20 won\u2019t see space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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First Starship orbital flight<\/h2>\n

To start with the big news, SpaceX will be using Raptor 2 engines for the first orbital flight of Starship. These engines are more reliable and more powerful than the more visually complex original raptor engines. Noteable, Booster 4 and Ship 20 are equipped with earlier Raptor engines, not the Raptor 2 that SpaceX was struggling with into late last year. This means to iconicly numbered pair won\u2019t be the first to make to go orbital, as has seemed likely for the past several months.<\/p>\n

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Additionally, the tweets made it clear that the FAA is not to blame for this delay, as Elon said in the tweet, \u201cWe\u2019ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test.\u201d This makes it clear that, however frustrating the delays in the FAA environmental assessment may be, they are not what is holding back SpaceX from an orbital launch attempt.<\/p>\n

This May launch date is also likely optimistic. Even Musk only said \u201chopefully\u201d May, so this could easily push much later into summer (and that is assuming everything with the FAA\u2019s environmental assessment does go through as planned, which may have been delayed yet again).<\/p>\n