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We’re probably still a month or so away from the next launch of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket.
This was the timeline Elon Musk presented in a filing Share on X over the weekend, saying that Starship’s next test flight would take “probably 3 to 5 weeks.” The billionaire businessman added: “The goal is for the ship to exceed the heating limit, or at least further than last time.”
At 400 feet (122 m) tall, Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of two components, both designed to be fully and quickly reusable: a massive first-stage booster called the Super Heavy and a 165-foot (50 m) upper stage known as the Starship, or simply “Ship.”
Related: Enjoy SpaceX Starship’s third flight experience in stunning images
The fully stacked spacecraft has flown three times so far, each time from SpaceX’s Starbase site in south Texas — in April 2023, November 2023, and March 14 of this year. The giant car performed better with each successive trip.
During the first launch, for example, Starship’s two stages failed to separate as planned, and SpaceX blew up the rolling vehicle just four minutes after liftoff. Flight 2 achieved separation, but both the Super Heavy and Ship crashed early, ending the mission after eight minutes.
On Flight 3, the Super Heavy successfully made its way to its planned position in the Gulf of Mexico but crashed 1,650 feet (500 m) above the waves. The ship reached orbital speed and flew for about 50 minutes, although it eventually succumbed to violent frictional forces upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
As he noted in his post on X, Musk wants the ship to perform better on the upcoming Voyage 4.
SpaceX has been preparing for the fourth flight for some time. The company has already conducted static fire tests of both the Super Heavy and the ship assigned to the mission, briefly igniting the Raptor’s engines while the vehicles remained docked on the pad at Starbase. SpaceX also recently returned Flight 4’s Super Heavy to the pad, presumably for further testing, a move the company recorded in Posted on X on Saturday (May 11).
However, there may still be logistical hurdles to overcome; SpaceX still needs to obtain a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is overseeing the investigation into what happened on the March 14 flight.
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