The biggest and most powerful rocket ever built is set to take to the skies again next week as SpaceX looks to ramp up testing for its Mars-bound Starship spacecraft.
The eleventh flight test will follow a similar profile to the previous two Starship flights, launching from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
Scheduled for launch on Monday 13 October at 6.15pm local time (12.15am BST on Tuesday), the event will be live streamed on SpaceX’s website.
“Starship’s tenth flight test took a significant step forward in developing the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle,” SpaceX said.
“The upcoming flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next generation Super Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s heatshield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site.”
SpaceX is developing Starship to deliver crew and cargo to the surface of the Moon as part of Nasa’s Artemis program.
A series of setbacks in earlier Starship tests forced the US space agency to push back its schedule for the lunar landing, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2024.
Challenges with the development of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) mean the crewed flight is now expected to take place no earlier than mid-2027, though former director of Mission Operations at Nasa Paul Hill said it may be even later than that.
“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” he said at a recent meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk eventually hopes to use a fleet of Starship rockets to establish a permanent human colony on Mars, with the first human flights expected to take place as early as 2029, according to the tech billionaire.
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