After two setbacks, SpaceX may attempt to launch large Starship subsequent week

SpaceX mentioned Friday it’s going to make one other launch try subsequent week of the huge Starship rocket—key to CEO Elon Musk’s long-term imaginative and prescient of colonizing Mars—after two consecutive in-flight explosions earlier this 12 months.

“The ninth flight check of Starship is getting ready to launch as quickly as Tuesday, Could 27,” the corporate mentioned on its web site, including the launch window would open at 6:30 pm (2330 GMT) at its base in Texas.

Two earlier check flights of the world’s largest and strongest rocket resulted in setbacks, with high-altitude explosions and showers of particles falling over the Caribbean.

Each occasions, the higher stage of the rocket was misplaced. However the Tremendous Heavy Booster was caught with the launch tower’s mechanical “chopstick” arms—a formidable feat of engineering.

To this point, Starship has accomplished eight built-in check flights atop the Tremendous Heavy booster, with 4 successes and 4 failures ending in explosions.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered inquiries and grounded all SpaceX flights, however on Thursday licensed the resumption of the corporate’s flight actions, supplied that modifications had been made to the rocket.

For this new flight, SpaceX will reuse one of many recovered Tremendous Heavy boosters for the primary time.

Nevertheless, the car won’t return to Starbase for a brand new catch. As a substitute, it will likely be used to conduct “a number of flight experiments to assemble real-world efficiency information” earlier than making a “onerous splashdown” within the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America upon taking workplace.

Standing 403 toes (123 meters) tall—about 100 toes taller than the Statue of Liberty—Starship is designed to finally be absolutely reusable.

Musk’s firm is betting on the launch of quite a few Starship prototypes as a way to rapidly appropriate issues—a profitable technique, however one which has its critics.

In 2023, a number of environmental teams sued the FAA, accusing them of failing to utterly assess the environmental influence of those check flights.

Regardless of the criticism, the FAA in early Could licensed the rise of the variety of annual Starship rocket launches from 5 to 25 at SpaceX’s Texas base.

© 2025 AFP