SpaceX Is Ready To Fly World’s Largest Rocket For The Fourth Time This Thursday

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Wrapping up a jam packed week for American spaceflight, SpaceX has shifted its launch date for the fourth Starship test flight forward by a day. Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, is being developed in Texas. As part of its development, SpaceX regularly conducts test flights, and the last Starship launch took place earlier this year. It saw the first phase of the test, i.e., stage separation and reaching space, complete successfully, but the second phase, which covers booster touchdown and atmospheric reentry of the second stage Starship, wasn't quite as successful. According to SpaceX, the fourth Starship test flight will focus on these objectives.

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Ahead of the upcoming test on Thursday, SpaceX has been busy working with the IFT-4 Starship test in Texas. Footage from local media shows that the firm has stacked and destroyed the second stage Starship and Super Heavy booster multiple times. The latest developments have seen SpaceX install the flight termination system for the rocket. This system is nonnegotiable for a rocket launch, and it is responsible for destroying the rocket in case of an anomaly during the test.

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Before it can fly the full Starship stack for the fourth time in Texas, SpaceX has to receive the FAA's license approval As of Sunday, this approval is still pending, but the fact that the FTS has been installed on Starship means that the firm is confident in securing the FAA's go ahead.

In its pre launch update, SpaceX also shared details for the key tests it ran on Starship IFT-3. Since the second stage Starship is also NASA's lander of choice for the Artemis lunar landings, SpaceX is also running tests for the NASA