We could see Starship return to flight as early as next month. SpaceX’s massive Starship reusable rocket completed two test flights in 2023, the first in April and the second in November, and now company officials say a third such mission could occur as early as February 2024.

The company is currently seeking approval for a third Starship flight, SpaceX VP of Customer Relations and Integration Jessica Jensen said during a media teleconference held Tuesday, Jan. 9, to discuss updates on NASA’s Artemis Lunar Exploration Program. “In terms of hardware preparation, we plan to be ready in January. Then we will be licensed for the third flight in terms of FAA licensing,” Jensen said, referring to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Jensen added that SpaceX is currently completing the corrective actions required after Starship’s second flight test, but the company is awaiting FAA approval for its third flight test in February. “We expect this license to arrive in February. So it looks like three of them will be released in February this year.

Another topic discussed at length during Tuesday’s teleconference was the transfer of rocket fuel outside Earth, which SpaceX and NASA are planning as part of the Artemis 3 mission in a few years. NASA has chosen Starship as the crewed lander for Artemis 3, a vehicle that will launch two astronauts to the lunar surface in 2021 and return to lunar orbit at the end of their stay.

But since rockets and spacecraft burn most of their fuel, leaving Earth’s deep gravity, a massive vehicle like Starship must refuel in orbit before continuing its journey to the Moon. One question that remained was how many of these refueling flights would be needed to get the Starship into orbit.

The topic was brought up during Tuesday’s teleconference, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson even stepped in to answer the question when Jensen’s initial answer didn’t include a specific number.

Jensen said it would take “about 10” flights to charge the Artemis 3 Starship in space, but that number could change depending on how fuel transfer capacity tests go. Jensen noted that Starship’s upcoming third test flight “will not be a ship-to-ship rocket fuel transfer mission in orbit” that would be required for Artemis 3.

“It sounds complex and scary and looks like a huge nebula, but when you really break it down into different pieces, we’ve actually accomplished almost all the complex pieces that we already have in our operational programs, and that’s just together for Starship.” added Jensen.

NASA’s Amit Kshatriya, the agency’s deputy deputy administrator for the Moon-Mars program, added that one of the reasons so many different rocket fuel transfer flights were evaluated before was because the agency and SpaceX had multiple models and analyses. What good would refueling the starship do? drags together

“But when we try to do this in orbit, the rubber will hit the road,” Kshatriya said. “SpaceX has been very transparent with us and we have shared a lot of data with them about the challenges we face in terms of cryogenic refueling.”

Kshatriya added that in addition to fuel transfer tests, the agency wants to conduct an uncrewed test on the Moon with Starship before Artemis 3.

As announced during a teleconference on Tuesday, NASA currently plans to launch the Artemis 2 crewed mission, which will send a four-person crew around the moon in September 2025. The history-making crew will include three NASA astronauts: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover (who will be the first black person to leave low Earth orbit, or LEO), and mission specialist Christina Koch (the first woman), as well as Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen (LEO’ will be the first non-American to leave).

According to Nelson, “Artemis-3” will appear in September 2026. Given Starship’s flight test program and fuel transfer tests, this goal is looking increasingly ambitious.