SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

Sometimes it’s hard to write objectively about how quickly SpaceX is advancing. The progress we’re seeing at the company’s South Texas Starbase site is unprecedented.

Like, seriously unprecedented.

On Sunday, SpaceX finished stacking what it calls “Booster 4”, the first of its Super Heavy rocket boosters set to take off. It is a massive single-core rocket about 70 meters high and 9 meters in diameter. It has a thrust about twice that of the Saturn V rocket that launched NASA astronauts to the moon.

Then, overnight, something remarkable happened. Technicians and engineers at the SpaceX construction facility near Boca Chica Beach attached 29 Raptor rocket engines to the rocket. Twenty-nine engines. Each with intricate plumbing lines and connections. This is the number of engines Super Heavy will fly with for the initial flight tests, although the final configuration is likely to have 32 engines.

I don’t really know what to write or say about all of this, because usually in rocket business it takes a few days to install a single engine.

After a few initial checks in the assembly area, Booster 4 will drive to the launch site a few miles down the road. This can happen as early as Tuesday. After that, there will likely be pressure tests and a series of static fire resistance tests. With so many valuable Raptor engines in play, we can probably expect SpaceX to be pretty careful with this vehicle’s test schedule.

SpaceX is also nearing completion of “Ship 20,” Starship’s latest upper stage prototype that will be placed on top of Booster 4 for a full Starship system launch.

While SpaceX has made substantial progress on hardware, the company’s move on the regulatory side of things remains murky. It looks like the rapid assembly of Starship, its Super Heavy booster, and the Orbital Launch Complex in South Texas will set up a new high-stakes showdown between the FAA and SpaceX. The company will be ready to fly, but it’s unclear when the Federal Aviation Administration will complete its environmental review of the starbase location and approve orbital launches from the site.

For months, SpaceX has been working with the FAA on an environmental assessment. After the publication of a “draft” of this assessment, there will be a minimum period of 30 days for public comments. This will be followed by other steps, including a determination by the FAA on whether the environmental mitigation measures proposed by SpaceX will be sufficient or if further work is required. More information on this process is available on the FAA website.

Given all of this, it’s hard to see SpaceX receiving the regulatory approvals required to launch Starship on an orbital test flight before this fall, if not later.

Despite this, SpaceX reportedly recruited staff in South Texas, bringing in hundreds of employees from its California-based headquarters and elsewhere to complete assembly of Booster 4 and launch site facilities. Why would he do this if regulatory approval does not come for months?

It seems like a calculated effort to get the FAA to speed up the regulatory process. The optics of a completed rocket, by far the largest and most powerful in the world, sitting on a launch pad awaiting paperwork is not great. And with NASA and the US Department of Defense now having a vested interest in Starship’s success, SpaceX could find allies elsewhere in the US government.