The latest version of SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket is rolled out to the launch pad Tuesday in preparation for a test flight set for Thursday evening from Starbase in South Texas. Eric Gay/Associated Press
A 90-minute launch window opens at 5:30 p.m. Central, but scattered storms have Elon Musk’s space firm predicting only a 55% chance that weather will cooperate for the mega-rocket’s 12th test flight. SpaceX has Starship stacked on its Super Heavy booster at the launch tower and completed a round of testing Wednesday.
Musk’s company has a lot riding on the mission. “Starship Rising,” Musk said in a comment on X in response to a SpaceX post with images of the spacecraft and its builders. “These vehicles are the first of many — made possible by the tireless effort of SpaceX engineers and technicians — and are designed to enable the core revolutionary capabilities of Starship,” it said.
The mission comes as the company prepares to go public as soon as June 12 and, according to registration documents filed Wednesday, the 400-foot-tall rocket is critical to the space firm’s success, underpinning plans to rapidly grow its Starlink satellite internet network, satellite-to-mobile connectivity and eventually a constellation of AI data center satellites.
Musk and company need a win as pressure is mounting from NASA for the rocket to meet timelines under the Artemis program to return to the moon. NASA has invested about $4 billion in Starship, which is set to be part of the Artemis III mission now projected to launch next year.
The planned flight will be the first for the third generation of Starships and the project’s first flight since October, when a second-generation Starship released a batch of dummy Starlink satellites and returned to Earth for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX has been upgrading the spacecraft and its two Starbase launch towers as it prepares for as many as 25 flights a year from its border complex near Boca Chica Beach.
According to the company, the flight will resemble past missions, with the goal of operating the redesigned components “in the flight environment for the first time.” After propelling the upper-stage Starship to space, the rocket’s 20-story-tall booster will return for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX won’t try to land the booster back at the launch tower as it has in the past because it “is the first flight test of a significantly redesigned vehicle.”
While in space, Starship will attempt to release 20 dummy Starlink satellites and two “specially modified” Starlinks. Starlink is the company’s biggest moneymaker for three years running and is expected to generate $20 billion in revenue this year. The two modified satellites “will scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions,” SpaceX said. The company also has removed one of the craft’s heat tiles to see what happens to adjacent tiles when one is missing.
Like past flights, SpaceX will test the craft’s heat shield, engines and flight controls during the mission, including stressing “the structural limits of the vehicle’s rear flaps and a dynamic banking maneuver to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly.” Starship is expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour and five minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX plans to provide a live webcast of the test flight beginning about 45 minutes before liftoff on its website, on the X social media channel and the X TV app.