SpaceX's seventh test flight of its Starship launch vehicle is now slated for Thursday, after getting pushed back from Wednesday owing to unfavorable weather conditions.
What Happened: The company said that it is currently preparing to launch Starship on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. CT.
The launch was previously slated for Wednesday but the company had warned that it is keeping a close eye on weather and that the timeline could be pushed in case of adverse conditions.
Starship's seventh flight test has already been postponed multiple times. In December, company CEO Elon Musk had pegged it for as early as Jan. 10.
Why It Matters: Starship, currently undergoing testing and development, will launch from Starbase for its seventh test flight carrying 10 Starlink simulators which are similar in size and weight to the company's next-generation Starlink satellites in a bid to demonstrate its capabilities in the satellite launch segment.
For the upcoming flight, SpaceX is looking to catch the two-stage vehicle’s booster back at the launch pad at Starbase with the launch tower’s metallic arms like on its fifth test flight in October. However, in case of any safety concerns, the company will splash it down in the Gulf of Mexico, it said.
The spacecraft, meanwhile, is slated to be splashed down in the Indian Ocean for the upcoming test.
While SpaceX has conducted 6 test flights of its ambitious launch vehicle to date, none of them carried a payload. The last test flight of Starship was in November.
Starship is key to many big ambitions in the field of space exploration. 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 vehicle.
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