Day: March 14, 2024

BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was poised for a third uncrewed test launch Thursday that Elon Musk’s company hopes will carry it farther than before, even if it ends up exploding once again in flight.

The spacecraft, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, was due for liftoff as early as 8 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Gulf of Mexico near Boca Chica, Texas.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration just granted a license for the test flight on Wednesday afternoon.

Unlike the first two test flights last year, aimed mainly at demonstrating that the spacecraft’s two stages can separate after launch, the third test flight will involve an attempt to open Starship’s payload door and reignite one of its engines in space.

Each of the previous flights were routed toward a planned crash landing near the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific, while the latest flight is targeting a splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean.

Even if it achieves more of its test objectives than before, SpaceX acknowledges a high probability that Starship’s latest flight will end up like the first two, with the vehicle blowing itself to bits before its intended trajectory is complete.

Regardless of how well it performs on Thursday, all indications are that Starship remains a considerable distance from becoming fully operational.

Musk, SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO, has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first humans. And several other ambitious milestones overseen by NASA are needed before the craft can execute a moon landing with American astronauts.

Still, Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.

Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in company’s commercial launch business that already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.

For Thursday, SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship’s performance with its Super Heavy booster during their inaugural test launch together last April, when the spacecraft exploded over the Gulf less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight.

That flight went awry from the start. Some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and the lower-stage rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship, leading to termination of the flight.

The second test flight in November made it farther than the first, and managed to properly achieve stage separation, but the spacecraft exploded about eight minutes after launch.

SpaceX’s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.

NASA, SpaceX’s biggest customer, has a lot riding in the success of Starship, which the U.S. space agency is giving a central role in its Artemis program, successor to the Apollo missions that put astronauts on the moon for the first time more than 50 years ago.

While NASA Administrator chief Bill Nelson has embraced Musk’s frequent flight-testing approach, agency officials in recent months have made clear their desire to see greater progress with Starship’s development as the U.S. races with China to the lunar surface.

Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili visited Finland, where he held meetings with the country’s President, Alexander Stubb, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elina Valtonen, Minister for European Affairs Anders Adlercreutz, as well as representatives of the Grand Committee of Parliament. During the meetings, the parties discussed bilateral cooperation, security challenges, and European integration. “We discussed many topics, also recent history. In 2008, we should have seen what was coming. Let us not repeat our mistakes,” Alexander Stubb posted on internet platform X after the meeting with Minister Darchiashvili.

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A parliamentary delegation headed by the Speaker Shalva Papuashvili is visiting Switzerland and Liechtenstein. During the visit, Speaker Papuashvili has already met with the President of the Swiss National Council, Eric Nussbaumer; the President of the Swiss Council of States, Eva Herzog; the Head of the Federal Department for Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis; and the Director of the Swiss Agency for Development, Patricia Danzi. Speaker Papuashvili is also scheduled to meet with other representatives of the Swiss government, the Prime Minister, and the President of the Parliament of Liechtenstein.  

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Secretary of the Security Council of Azerbaijan, Ramil Usubov, paid a visit to Georgia, meeting with the leadership of the country, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Defense Minister Irakli Chikovani, and Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri. According to the official press releases, security challenges, regional developments, and security and defense cooperation topped the discussion agenda during the meetings in Tbilisi. “Georgia remains committed to promoting peace in the region, fostering stability and cooperation for the benefit of all,” PM Kobakhidze posted on X following the meeting with high-level Azerbaijani official.

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In a joint statement released by five local watchdogs, it was said that the government’s refusal of the EU-proposed “vetting” system in the judiciary hinders the country’s EU integration. According to the statement, establishing a system of extraordinary integrity checks for judges is “in full compliance with international standards, and the European Court of Human Rights has already recognized this fact.” The watchdogs stress that the Government’s rhetoric against such an integrity check system has also been shared by the very judges whose integrity is highly questioned in society.

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As Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili approves the controversial appointment of Russia-linked businessman Mamuka Merkviladze as the new Head of the Georgian Interests Section at the Embassy of Switzerland in Russia, succeeding Giorgi Kajaia in this post, Civil.ge delves into details of Merkviladze’s alarming ties to Russia and its possible implications for Georgia.

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The Data of the Day

The Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) reduced the key refinancing rate by 0.75 to 8.25%, saying inflation remains low in the country. “In February, headline inflation increased by 0.3% annually, while core inflation was 2.4%,” the NBG said in an announcement. According to the NBG, Georgia’s low inflation results from tight monetary policy, lower inflation expectations, and a significant decline in external shocks, such as those caused by the war and the pandemic.

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National Statistics Service (Geostat) published express data indicating that the country’s external merchandise trade (excluding non-declared trade) decreased by 5.0% in January-February 2024 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, amounting to USD 2,941.5 million. According to the same data, external merchandise trade saw exports decrease by 12.2% to USD 803.2 million, while imports declined by 2.0% and totaled USD 2,138.2 million.