It is a rare thing when SpaceX’s fully stacked Starship vehicle takes a back seat in a photograph.
But it surely could have happened, because of the natural beauty surrounding Starbase, SpaceX’s seaside facility in South Texas. The corporate captured that beauty in a recent image of Starship on the pad, showing the large rocket standing between the turquoise waters of a shallow bay, with sandy wetlands and the darker-blue Gulf of Mexico within the background.
“Starship stacked at Starbase ahead of flight, team continues to work with the FAA on a launch license,” SpaceX wrote in a Sept. 30 post on X (formerly Twitter), which featured the photo. The FAA is the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
Related: Relive SpaceX’s explosive 1st Starship test in incredible launch photos
As that post notes, SpaceX is gearing as much as launch Starship, for the second time ever. The primary mission, which lifted off this past April, aimed to send the vehicle’s upper stage partway around Earth, with a splashdown targeted for the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
That did not occur, nevertheless. Starship suffered a lot of problems shortly after launch, including the failure of its two stages to separate, and SpaceX detonated the vehicle intentionally high above the Gulf of Mexico.
The FAA wrapped up its investigation of the April mishap last month but has not yet awarded a license for the second launch, whose goals might be much like those of the primary. SpaceX also must secure environmental approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, based on Reuters.
SpaceX will likely aim to fly soon after those boxes are checked. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that Starship is able to go from a technical standpoint.
Starship is the largest and strongest rocket ever built, boasting nearly twice the thrust at liftoff as NASA’s Space Launch System, the brawniest launcher currently in operation.
The SpaceX vehicle can also be designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, the breakthrough needed to make Mars colonization and other ambitious exploration feats economically feasible, based on Musk.