Prediction: 400 Starship Launches in 4 Years, as SpaceX Abandons Its Most Popular Rocket

Elon Musk's Martian fever dream is growing by leaps and bounds.October marked arguably the best performance by Musk's still-under-development Starship, when Flight Test 5 of the SpaceX Starship featured a successful mid-air capture of the returning Super Heavy booster by mechanical "chopsticks" on the rocket's launch-and-landing tower. One month later, Flight Test 6 saw a tower capture abort -- a disappointment -- but picture-perfect water landings by both Super Heavy and the rocket's Starship second stage, as well as a successful reignition of at least one Starship engine while in orbit (which was another technical objective of the flight test).Impressed by SpaceX's rapid advancements, no sooner were the results in than the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration cleared SpaceX to quintuple its Starship launch rate, from five launches per year to 25. But even 25 launches a year isn't good enough for SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell.Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool