West News Wire: SpaceX is planning to launch its potent Starship rocket on Monday morning. This rocket will eventually ferry tourists to the moon and Mars.
The first flight test of a “fully integrated” Starship spacecraft with the so-called Super Heavy rocket will take place during the unmanned launch of the largest rocket in the world, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX announced that the 150-minute test window will begin at 7 a.m. CT on Monday, adding that the timetable is “dynamic and likely to change.” About 45 minutes prior to takeoff, there will be a live broadcast of the flight test.
The date follows the Federal Aviation Administration’s Friday approval of SpaceX’s roughly 400-foot-tall rocket launch from a remote location near Boca Chica Beach on the southernmost part of Texas.
“Success maybe, excitement guaranteed!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted Friday night.
Following blastoff, the first stage of the super heavy rocket is expected to splash down about 20 miles off the coast of Boca Chica while the Starship vehicle orbits around the globe before splashing down off the coast of Hawaii.
SpaceX said this flight test will “inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship,” which is designed to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights.
NASA has already announced plans to use a Starship to put astronauts on the lunar surface in 2025.
