Rocket Report: SpaceX’s Super Heavy is lit, court strikes down Georgia spaceport
Enlarge / NASA conducts an RS-25 hot fire test on the Fred Haise Test Stand at Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi on Feb. 8, 2023. (credit: NASA)
Welcome to Edition 5.25 of the Rocket Report! On Thursday afternoon much of the space world was tuned into South Texas, where SpaceX conducted what appeared to be a successful static-fire test of its Super Heavy rocket. This was a critical step on the pathway to a much-anticipated orbital flight test of Starship this spring. It looks like this is really happening.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Georgia spaceport effort appears doomed. The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled Tuesday that Camden County must abide by a March 2022 referendum in which nearly three-quarters of local voters cast ballots against a proposed vertical launch spaceport, the Georgia Recorder reports. Since 2015 the Camden County Board of Commissioners has spent more than $11 million trying to get the project going, which has been opposed by some residents and environmental groups.