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Confirmed! SpaceX and FAA Working on Faster Starship Launches · Elon Musk Podcast

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  Hey everybody, checking back to the Elon Musk Podcast, this is a
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  show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The Shape,
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  SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, and I'm
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  your host, Will Walden. One more thing before we start
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  app off of Android and I want to let you know where to continue
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  finding the show. Over at YouTube Music Search for
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  Elon Musk podcast. Let's talk about some SpaceX
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  news here. The FAA and SpaceX are working
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  very hard together to make sure that the next flight of Starship
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  happens without a hitch. Now Starship IFT 3, the
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  integrated flight test that just happened a little while ago was
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  pretty much a success, right? So now they're moving forward
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  with the IFT 4 launch and hopefully everything goes well
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  with that launch. Now the FAA has to work with
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  SpaceX in order to give them a flight license.
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  They have to make sure that everything's safe for SpaceX,
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  the rocket, the workers and also people in the way of the Rockets
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  flight. That's important.
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  They don't want to hurt anybody, any property or anything going
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  forward with these flights. Now this is important because
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  SpaceX launches the Starship over the Gulf of Mexico and
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  apparently according to the IFT 3 flight path, it was going to
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  land in the Indian Ocean. The Starship was, the booster is
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  going to land in the Gulf of Mexico.
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  OK, so the Starship might land in the Indian Ocean.
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  Again, we're not 100% sure what's going on with this.
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  We are guessing. Everyone's guesstimating that it
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  will happen similarly, but there is some FAA hinting at what may
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  happen for this next one. So before anything happens, FAA
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  and SpaceX will be working together to make sure to save
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  the whole operation. They have to make sure that
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  SpaceX uses the time between this flight, the last flight,
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  IFT 3 and IFT 4, to save the area and make sure that they put
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  anything in place that they found was wrong in the last
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  flight. So anything in the booster or
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  anything in the ship, they have to fix it.
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  They have to change it in order to make it a safer flight for
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  the future. Now there's a possible flight in
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  May, but it's not guaranteed. Right now the FAA needs to
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  modify the launch license due to changes, potential changes in
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  the flight profile. We don't know exactly where this
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  is going to land, but it might land similarly close to where it
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  was going to land in the Indian Ocean, depending on the mission.
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  Now the FAA will prioritize the public safety over anything
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  else, and public safety is paramount, for one thing,
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  mainly. But mostly there there's two
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  things. One mainly is the booster in the
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  Gulf of Mexico, because that's going to try to do a soft
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  landing on a virtual tower. According to Elon on Flight 4.
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  And I made a video about Flight 4 and Flight 5 of Starship.
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  So flight 4, they want to do a virtual tower in the Gulf of
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  Mexico. This means that they're going to
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  do the normal flight like normal, like IFT 3, fly the ship
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  to the Indian Ocean, get the booster hot stage separation,
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  all of that stuff. But after the hot stage
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  separation, they're going to send the booster into the Gulf
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  of Mexico, land it vertically in the Gulf, similar to what they
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  would do with a launch tower. Land it.
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  They're going to make a virtual tower.
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  Maybe they're going to use some sort of a RVR set up so they
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  know exactly what's going to happen.
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  I don't know what they're going to do at that point, but
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  hopefully they have a really good understanding of the
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  landing mechanics of the booster because they haven't even gotten
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  it close to landing now. Ift 1 ift 2, ift 3 We haven't
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  even seen the booster get close to landing in the Gulf of
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  Mexico, so I have T4 if they can nail this.
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  Elon has said in his latest talk that he wants to land the
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  booster at Starbase and I don't know if this is a great idea.
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  I'm. I don't know.
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  I'm so scared of this. I don't want them to move back
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  six months because they landed a booster but it wasn't prepared
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  to land yet. I'm just, I'm terrified that
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  they could blow something up or something could happen.
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  They haven't got to Rudd at Starbase and they could set
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  themselves back six months. Now I know this is a thing that
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  they have thought about. They're rocket scientists after
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  all. They're engineers.
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  They're scientists. They do this for a living.
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  They make a bunch of money doing this.
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  And I'm not that guy. I am a coder.
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  I know how difficult code is, but landing a rocket, not 100%
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  an expert at that. And that's why I default to the
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  engineers and the scientists at SpaceX.
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  And I trust them that they'll do the right thing.
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  But I'm also scared that they're going to set themselves back.
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  I just don't want them to do that.
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  But the landing attempt in the Gulf of Mexico, let me know what
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  you think about it in the comments below.
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  I think it's scary. That's all I'm going to say.
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  It's got to be a wild ride. It's got to be excitement
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  guaranteed, as Elon says. But we do have some information
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  from an FAA spokesperson, Jim Coleman said that I think we
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  could possibly get there, which means a launch in May.
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  I'm not going to say we will get there absolutely, but I won't
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  say it's out of the question either.
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  On the possibility of a May launch, he said that the other
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  day, three days ago. He also said they're going to do
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  some different things with this particular missions, referring
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  to changes in the flight profile.
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  So IFT 3, they did normal flight profile booster back to the Gulf
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  of Mexico and it did a red and today it exploded over the Gulf
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  of Mexico, which is fine. They expected something like
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  that and they did. Hot stage firing was great.
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  They did the Starlink door. They open up the Starlink door,
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  which was fantastic. And they did some communications
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  with the ground we've heard about.
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  They did some live video feeds, which we didn't expect them to
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  do, but it was fantastic as well.
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  And then they tried to land the Starship in the Indian Ocean.
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  Now IFT 4, they're going to, as Elon said as well, they're going
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  to try to get the Starship to the height, basically a melting
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  point of the Starship as it reenters the atmosphere into the
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  Indian Ocean. And then it's going to their.
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  I think they're going to explode to Indian in the Indian Ocean.
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  So we're expecting that. Now there's other things, the
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  virtual tower landing, not exactly sure what that is, but
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  Elon has said it, they might do a public safety review.
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  The FAA might do a public safety review with a full mishap
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  investigation or from the full mishap investigation that SpaceX
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  does just to speed up the process.
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  And I think that's what's going to happen from here on out.
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  Elon and SpaceX and company will do a full mishap investigation
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  form the previous launch and then the FAA will look at it and
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  do a public safety review depending on that mishap
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  information and investigation information that they send over.
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  They're both willing and able to do this fast.
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  FAA say they are willing to go fast by may they want to and the
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  separation of the public safety review.
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  Hence it a potential difference between public safety flaws and
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  broader mishap investigation details.
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  Now SpaceX is going to have to do some things though before
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  they launch this rocket. Pre launch checks FAA likely
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  conducts conducts a thorough review of the launch vehicle and
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  launch procedures to ensure that they meet safety standards as
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  normal. They should do this.
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  It can involve inspections, simulations, and analysis of new
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  potential risks for IF T4 and IF T5 going forward, the flight
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  path, if it's changed the trajectory, FAA might assess the
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  flight path, a trajectory to ensure a minimal risk to
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  populated areas and also debris. What could happen?
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  Debris and blast radius. So if they run somewhere in the
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  Gulf of Mexico, what's that blast radius look like?
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  What's the debris going to look like?
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  And where's the good debris going to end up since the ocean
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  is so huge? The debris from it's a big
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  rocket to us, but to the ocean it's nothing.
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  Don't think Elon and company and the FEA are going to worry about
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  A1 rocket booster or one rocket in the Gulf of Mexico or the
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  Indian Ocean. Now another thing that the FEA
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  works on is the launch abort system, the Rudd system,
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  basically the FTS. Basically this thing blows up a
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  rocket if something goes wrong. And Elon and company have shown
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  that it works. After the IFT, one mishap where
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  it didn't work and the things spun out of control, now they
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  know what they're doing. I FT2I FT three.
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  Both worked great. The they're working forward.
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  They're working with SpaceX on the CFAA and SpaceX are working
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  on this critical safety flaws. Elon and company are working on
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  those. The FAA might want to confirm
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  there aren't any critical safety flaws for the next rocket flight
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  profile. Like I said before, overall
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  public safety is a paramount for the FAA and SpaceX as well.
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  If anything happens, public safety wise, Elon and company
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  are going to be pushed back, possibly for months, maybe a
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  year or two depending on the severity of the public safety
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  incident. Now IFT 5, this is going to be a
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  wild ride. If they do that booster landing
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  in the Gulf of Mexico, what's going to happen?
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  I want them to go as fast as possible.
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  And of course iterative design is the best way to do rocket
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  design, apparently because we know that Elon and Sace X,
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  they're killing it right now, They're doing great work.
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  O There's no reason why they should not continue doing this
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  in the future. Hey, thank you so much for
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  listening today. I really do appreciate your
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  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
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  tomorrow.