SpaceX’s next test flight of its Starship launch vehicle will depend on weather, the company warned on Tuesday.
What Happened: The company is currently preparing to launch Starship on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. CT. However, whether the company will go ahead with the launch date or postpone it further will depend on the weather, company CEO Elon Musk said.
“Starship Flight 7 launches tomorrow, provided weather is good,” Musk said on Tuesday.
SpaceX also said in a post on social media platform X that the team at Starbase, Texas, is keeping a close eye on weather conditions.
Starship’s seventh flight test has been postponed multiple times already. In December, Musk had pegged it for Jan. 10.
Why It Matters: SpaceX has said that its Starship vehicle, 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 on the upcoming test.
While SpaceX has conducted 6 test flights of its ambitious launch vehicle to date, none of them carried any 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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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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