SpaceX has received long-awaited launch permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is set to attempt the fourth test flight of its giant Starship rocket on Thursday.
The world’s most powerful rocket, consisting of a Super Heavy first-stage booster and the Starship upper-stage spacecraft, will launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Those watching in person or online will be treated to the thrilling spectacle of the 120-metre-tall rocket igniting its 33 Raptor engines to generate 17 million pounds of thrust — nearly double the thrust of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which has so far only flown once, in 2022.
Starship has flown three times so far, the first two flights took place last year and the most recent in March. The first two tests ended dramatically with a huge explosion just a few minutes into the flight. However, SpaceX learned a lot from the first two attempts, and in the third test, Super Heavy worked as intended, with the Starship spacecraft landing in the Indian Ocean after about 45 minutes of flight.
SpaceX has said in recent weeks that it’s ready to launch Starship in early June, but that it can’t move forward until it receives launch clearance from the FAA. Now that clearance has been granted, engineers can begin making final preparations for the launch this week.
A 120-minute launch window opens at 8 a.m. ET/11 a.m. PT on Thursday, and coverage of the mission will be live-streamed on SpaceX’s social media feeds. Digital Trends has more details on how to tune in to the livestream of the highly-anticipated test flight, as well as what viewers can expect.
“Starship’s fourth flight brings us closer to a rapidly reusable future,” SpaceX said, referring to the ability to fly and land both parts of the rocket and use them for multiple missions. “We continue the rapid development of Starship, putting our flight hardware into a flight environment and learning as quickly as possible while building a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
Starship’s moon mission is expected to take place before the end of the century, but given the ambitious nature of a manned Mars mission, it could be years before we see a Starship spacecraft headed to Mars.
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