SpaceX chief Elon Musk mentioned in February that the mighty Starship rocket would embark on its twelfth take a look at flight this month, though a number of more moderen stories have prompt that it won’t go away the launchpad till early April.
Preflight checks on the Starship rocket have been underway at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas because the workforce works to prepared the rocket for showtime.
In an necessary step towards launch day, the first-stage Tremendous Heavy — probably the most highly effective booster ever to fly — underwent a ground-based engine take a look at, referred to as a static fireplace, on Monday.
NASASpaceflight, which has a lot of cameras educated on the Starbase web site, shared some footage of the take a look at.
Monday’s take a look at scored three firsts for SpaceX. It was the primary time the brand new Pad 2 has been put to make use of on this means, the primary such take a look at for the brand new Starship Model 3, and the primary time for the rocket’s new Raptor 3 engines to be fired up for this sort of process.
However the static fireplace ended after only some seconds — a lot shorter than standard — suggesting there might have been a difficulty because the engines roared into life. SpaceX has but to make any official touch upon the end result of the necessary preflight take a look at.
The Starship flew most lately in October 2025. Meaning it’s been a protracted await the twelfth flight of the large rocket, particularly contemplating that the more moderen Starship launches have taken place inside two or three months of one another.
The delay has been put all the way down to the additional preparations wanted for the brand new model of Starship.
As soon as absolutely prepared, SpaceX’s latest and largest rocket will probably be used for crew and cargo flights to the moon as a part of NASA’s Artemis program, and will even take the primary people to Mars.
First up, a modified model of the upper-stage Ship spacecraft will probably be used to return people to the lunar floor as a part of the Artemis IV mission, which is at the moment set for 2028.
