SpaceX planned to launch its next-generation Starship spacecraft on its powerful Super Heavy rocket from the Gulf Coast of Texas on Thursday in a highly anticipated but brief uncrewed test flight.
Three days after a frozen pressurization valve scrubbed a launch attempt, the company’s Starbase launch pad east of Brownsville, Texas, was preparing for liftoff.
The two-stage rocketship, taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m), was scheduled to launch between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. EDT (1330 to 1430 GMT) on a 90-minute first voyage into space, just shy of Earth orbit, unless there were further delays on Thursday.
SpaceX’s goal of bringing humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars depends on the first launch of the combined Starship and booster rocket, which will also help NASA’s Artemis mission.
After a successful flight, the Starship would become Earth’s most powerful launch vehicle.
The lower-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship vessel it would transport to space are reusable and can return to Earth for soft landings as SpaceX’s orbital-class Falcon 9 rocket has done in hundreds of missions.
Thursday’s launch retrieved neither stage. Instead, both sections will crash-land at sea after their space debut. After detaching from the upper stage, the lower stage will fall into the Gulf of Mexico.
The booster rocket has never flown, but Starship cruise ship prototypes have performed five sub-space test flights to 6 miles (10 km).
SpaceX tested the Super Heavy in February by igniting 31 of its 33 engines for 10 seconds while strapped vertically on a platform.
Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration approved the maiden test flight of the fully stacked rocket system, clearing the final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch.
SpaceX’s Twitter amused Musk’s supporters and detractors’ announcement that it would launch again on Thursday, April 20.
The remark sparked a rush of jokes on Twitter about cannabis culture, 4/20, and Musk’s 2018 live online show smoking marijuana.
Musk founded runs, and engineers SpaceX. Last year, he bought Twitter for $44 billion. He also runs Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O).
On Thursday, the Starship will fly most of the way around the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and free-falling into the Pacific at supersonic speed around 60 miles off the northern Hawaiian islands.
After detaching from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster should commence a controlled return flight before plummeting into the Gulf.
The Starship rocket is roughly two times more powerful than NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which launched Orion on a 10-day trip around the moon in November.
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