SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that the company hopes to conduct the seventh flight test of its Starship launch vehicle on January 10th.
What Happened: “10th,” Musk wrote on social media platform X. The billionaire CEO was responding to a query on when SpaceX expects to conduct the seventh test flight of its Starship launch vehicle.
The Starship is still in development and undergoing testing. While NASA is looking forward to landing humans back on the surface of the Moon after a gap of over 50 years with the help of a custom version of the Starship, Musk dreams of taking humans to the planet Mars aboard the Starship.
The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
Starship is currently in the testing and development phase. The company has conducted six test flights of the vehicle thus far starting in April 2023 but without a payload. The last flight test took place in November.
Why It Matters: Earlier this month, Musk said that the version of the Starship spacecraft planned for the launch vehicle's seventh test flight features "major" design improvements.
"Lighter, easier to manufacture, and less susceptible to high heating," Musk said in a post on X about the new version of the spacecraft.
For the upcoming flight test, SpaceX will attempt to land the Starship spacecraft in the ocean yet again.
“We will do one more ocean landing of the ship. If that goes well, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower (launch tower at Starbase),” Musk previously said.
Catching the booster of the vehicle as well as the spacecraft back at the launch tower at Starbase is an important demonstration of the vehicle’s reusability.
SpaceX is attempting to make its rockets reusable to bring down the cost of spaceflight.
In July 2023, Musk warned that rocket manufacturers will need to go all-in on reusability or risk being uncompetitive.
"Rockets are no different from other transport technologies, just harder to make reusable. No one would buy a single-use airplane, car, or even bicycle! You'd need to tow another car just for the return trip," Musk said.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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