Elon Musk’s SpaceX set for test flight of the most powerful launch vehicle ever built
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Just weeks after SpaceX stunned the world with a precision landing of a giant rocket booster, the company is preparing for another test flight of the most powerful launch vehicle ever built.
SpaceX will again attempt the rocket movement that involves steering the booster back into the mechanical arms or “chopsticks” of a launch tower.
The two-stage megarocket which features the Starship spacecraft stacked atop the Super Heavy booster and it’ll will attempt liftoff during a 30-minute window that opens at 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.
SpaceX will live stream the event on the company’s X account, noting on its site that the timing of the event may change.
US President-elect Donald Trump will attend the event, and is expected to be joined by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in another example of Musk’s increasing role in Trump’s orbit.
Aiming to put boots on the moon as soon as 2026, the space agency plans to use the rocket’s upper stage, the Starship spacecraft, as a lunar lander ferrying astronauts to the moon’s surface.
The goal of these test flights is to plan out how SpaceX might one day recover and rapidly refly Super Heavy boosters and Starship spacecraft for future missions. Quickly reusing rocket parts is considered essential to drastically reducing the time and cost of getting cargo or ships of people to space.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said it did not have to undertake the lengthy process of reviewing a launch license alteration because the flight path of this week’s test flight is expected to closely mimic an earlier test flight.
“The FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight,” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA determined the changes requested by SpaceX for (Tuesday’s test flight) are within the scope of what has been previously analyzed.”
The fifth integrated test flight of Starship launched on October 13, garnering international attention with SpaceX’s ambitious attempt to maneuver the 232-foot-tall (71-meter) Super Heavy back to a gargantuan landing structure after the booster broke away from the Starship spacecraft.
A pair of giant metal pincers, which SpaceX calls “chopsticks,” successfully caught the Super Heavy midair.
“Starship’s fifth flight test was a seminal moment in iterating towards a fully and rapidly reusable launch system,” the company said in a statement.
