SpaceX's third launch: Live updates

The flight will begin at the site SpaceX calls Starbase, which is located a few miles north of where Texas and Mexico meet along the Gulf of Mexico. The missile, which is about 400 feet long, will be installed next to the launch tower, which is about 480 feet tall. It will be filled with methane and liquid oxygen fuel during the hours before liftoff.

Three seconds before launch, computers will start the 33 engines in the super-heavy rocket booster underneath the spacecraft.

Starship and Super Heavy will begin their ascent over the Gulf. SpaceX says that 52 seconds into the flight, the vehicle will experience the greatest atmospheric pressure of its flight, a moment flight engineers call max-q.

If the stainless-steel spacecraft survives this pressure, the next key moment will occur 2 minutes and 42 seconds into the flight, when most of the super-heavy thrust engines shut down. Seconds later, the overhead Starship will begin to “hot-roll,” or light up, its engines before separating from Super Heavy.

The Super Heavy's flight will end about seven minutes after launch. SpaceX typically aims to return a massive rocket booster to the launch site for a vertical landing. But for the test flight, the spent Super Heavy will perform a series of maneuvers before firing its engines one last time to slow its descent into the Gulf of Mexico.

As Super Heavy descends, the spacecraft will gain altitude. About eight and a half minutes into its flight, its engines will shut down. It will then begin to orbit around the Earth.

While flying through space, the spacecraft will attempt many things that a spacecraft has never done before. After about 12 minutes of flight, it will open a door that could lead to the future deployment of satellites and other cargo into space. After about 12 minutes, it will transfer fuel from one tank to another while in space, technology required for future trips to the moon and beyond. Then, 40 minutes into the flight, the spacecraft will restart one of its engines while in space.

If the spacecraft passes these tests, the end of the spacecraft's flight will begin at approximately the 49-minute mark. The spacecraft is set to rotate horizontally to reenter Earth's atmosphere. If it survives the extreme temperatures, the spacecraft will fall 64 minutes after leaving Texas. The company has said in the past that it expects a choppy ocean subsidence End in explosion.

After SpaceX completes its test campaign, future Starship flights will return to the Texas Starbase site after completing their missions in orbit. SpaceX is also building a launch tower for Starship at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where flights could one day take off and land, including the Artemis III mission that NASA plans to use to return American astronauts to the lunar surface.