Quite a lot of eyes might be SpaceX right now.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will present an replace on his firm’s imaginative and prescient to make humanity a multiplanetary species, adopted by Starship’s ninth check flight. Musk is ready to start his speak at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on Tuesday (Could 27), and Starship is concentrating on a launch window starting at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT).
Each might be streamed stay on the Area.com homepage and YouTube channel, in addition to on SpaceX’s Flight 9 mission page, the @SpaceX X account and X TV app. The printed for Musk’s talk this afternoon is scheduled to start at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 GMT). SpaceX’s stream for Starship Flight Check 9 will start at 6:50 p.m. EDT (2250 GMT).
Each occasions will happen at SpaceX’s manufacturing and check facility, situated within the Texas’s latest official metropolis, Starbase, located on the state’s southernmost tip.
Musk’s speak comes amidst elevated criticism of the SpaceX founder, and his political involvement with President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE). In a current name with Tesla buyers — one other firm for which Musk serves as CEO — Musk dedicated to stepping again from his DOGE involvement to focus extra on his enterprise ventures. The final time he gave a pre-Starship launch speak was in April 2024.
Starship, too, is affected by a public picture drawback. The 2 most up-to-date flight assessments for the enormous rocket ended within the explosion of the car’s higher “Ship” stage, slowing the rocket’s growth towards operational standing.
Simply earlier than the Starship flight subsequent week, I’ll give an organization speak explaining the Mars sport plan in Starbase, Texas, that may also be live-streamed on 𝕏 https://t.co/cxztHrK285May 13, 2025
Starships Flight 7 and Flight 8, in January and March, respectively, each efficiently returned their Tremendous Heavy first stage boosters to Starbase, the place they had been caught mid-air by the launch tower’s “Mechazilla” chopstick-like arms. However each flights additionally misplaced their Ship higher phases in spectacular explosions seen throughout Florida and The Bahamas.
The back-to-back failures have hampered Starship’s growth and put a tighter clock on the car’s anticipated operational begin. NASA has contracted SpaceX to develop Starship because the lunar lander for the company’s Artemis 3 mission to return astronauts to the floor of the moon. That mission is slated to launch someday in 2027. Earlier than then, SpaceX has to land at the least one uncrewed Starship on the moon after which efficiently launch it again into lunar orbit. To date, Starship has not but accomplished one full orbit of Earth.
SpaceX’s iterative course of by way of Starship’s growth has earned the corporate reward for the pace with which the launch car has matured, but in addition criticism over the optics that accompany a large rocket breaking up into tons of of fireballs falling by way of the environment.
Totally stacked, Ship and the Tremendous Heavy booster stand round 400 ft (122 meters) tall. Mixed, they make up the world’s largest, strongest launch car ever constructed, and are designed to be absolutely reusable. Musk has touted the car as the reply to creating human life multiplanetary, and has stated SpaceX intends to start launching Starships to Mars starting in 2026.
Starship Flight 9 is anticipated to final simply over an hour, and can try to efficiently fly the trail its Flight 8 predecessor failed to finish in March. Ship is launching with a number of in-space goals, together with the deployment of eight dummy Starlink satellites and a relight of one among Ship’s Raptor engines. The satellite tv for pc simulators are anticipated to expend on reentry.
This would be the first reuse of one among SpaceX’s Tremendous Heavy boosters. Flight 9 will launch utilizing the identical first stage that launched Flight 7. Not like earlier launches, Tremendous Heavy won’t return to its Starbase launch website following separation from Ship, and can as an alternative try a comfortable touchdown within the Gulf waters south of Starbase, the place it will likely be discarded.
