SpaceX's Mars rocket Starship could be grounded on the pad for a while longer, as the company was ordered by a US authority on Friday to make necessary corrections before they could receive a launch licence.
The company's owner Elon Musk said last week that the rocket was “ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval”, with a new Starship now placed at SpaceX's Starbase pad in Boca Chica, Texas.
This would be the rocket's second test flight, after the first attempt in April failed because of a technical issue.
Engineers had to purposely blow up the rocket mid-flight when the second stage failed to separate from the booster.
Mr Musk had said at the time that the flight still gave them “plenty of data” to try again.
When is the next flight attempt?
The mishap led the US Federal Aviation Administration to launch an investigation into what went wrong.
On Friday, the FAA said that it had closed the investigation after identifying 63 corrective actions SpaceX must take to prevent issues from reoccurring.
This means SpaceX could be waiting a while longer to launch its Starship rocket, as it will have to secure a licence from the FAA first.
“The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica,” the FAA said in a statement on Friday.
“SpaceX must implement all corrective actions that impact public safety and apply for and receive a licence modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch.”
What was SpaceX ordered to correct?
After the first orbital test flight, there were concerns over the large amount of debris that scattered in parts of the town.
The explosion also worried environmentalists, as Boca Chica is surrounded by protected lands that host local wildlife.
Chunks of Starship tumbled back to Earth after engineers ordered a “rapid unplanned disassembly” – a process that automatically disintegrates the rocket.
It had reached a peak altitude of 39 kilometres over the Gulf of Mexico when the mishap took place.
Some of the corrective actions ordered by the FAA include redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires and a redesign of the launch pad to “increase its robustness”.
Why does Elon Musk want to launch Starship?
Completing an orbital test flight would help SpaceX move closer to its goal of starting commercial operations.
Starship is a two-stage rocket system that includes a booster with the spacecraft on top of it.
SpaceX claims it is the most powerful launch vehicle developed, able to produce 3,991 tonnes of thrust, 15 per cent more than Nasa’s Apollo Moon rocket Saturn V, according to the company's website.
SpaceX has been contracted by Nasa to develop the Starship Human Landing System, which would help astronauts land on the Moon under the US space agency’s Artemis programme.
But Mr Musk's long-term goal is to eventually send humans to Mars using his Starship fleets, helping to “make life multi-planetary”.
He has already sold seats on the rocket, including to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who plans on flying the first crewed flight to the Moon, taking eight artists with him as part of his dearMoon programme.
American billionaire Jared Isaacman is also working with SpaceX through his Polaris programme, a series of privately-led space missions.
Mr Isaacman will serve as commander on the Polaris III mission, the first crewed orbital flight on the Starship rocket.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
The five pillars of Islam
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Abdul Jabar Qahraman was meeting supporters in his campaign office in the southern Afghan province of Helmand when a bomb hidden under a sofa exploded on Wednesday.
The blast in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah killed the Afghan election candidate and at least another three people, Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak told reporters. Another three were wounded, while three suspects were detained, he said.
The Taliban – which controls much of Helmand and has vowed to disrupt the October 20 parliamentary elections – claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mr Qahraman was at least the 10th candidate killed so far during the campaign season, and the second from Lashkar Gah this month. Another candidate, Saleh Mohammad Asikzai, was among eight people killed in a suicide attack last week. Most of the slain candidates were murdered in targeted assassinations, including Avtar Singh Khalsa, the first Afghan Sikh to run for the lower house of the parliament.
The same week the Taliban warned candidates to withdraw from the elections. On Wednesday the group issued fresh warnings, calling on educational workers to stop schools from being used as polling centres.
The Land between Two Rivers: Writing in an Age of Refugees
Tom Sleigh, Graywolf Press
The specs
Engine: 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 540hp at 6,500rpm
Torque: 600Nm at 2,500rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Kerb weight: 1580kg
Price: From Dh750k
On sale: via special order
Dark Souls: Remastered
Developer: From Software (remaster by QLOC)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Price: Dh199
Neymar's bio
Total club appearances 411
Total goals scored 241
Appearances for Barca 186
Goals scored for Barca 105
The%20specs
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Did you know?
Brunch has been around, is some form or another, for more than a century. The word was first mentioned in print in an 1895 edition of Hunter’s Weekly, after making the rounds among university students in Britain. The article, entitled Brunch: A Plea, argued the case for a later, more sociable weekend meal. “By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well,” the piece read. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.” More than 100 years later, author Guy Beringer’s words still ring true, especially in the UAE, where brunches are often used to mark special, sociable occasions.
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 4 (Salah (pen 4, 33', & pen 88', Van Dijk (20')
Leeds United 3 (Harrison 12', Bamford 30', Klich 66')
Man of the match Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
SPECS
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Simran
Director Hansal Mehta
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Soham Shah, Esha Tiwari Pandey
Three stars
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Power: 575bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh554,000
On sale: now
