Elon Musk's SpaceX Gears Up For Starship's Fourth Flight With Yet Another Engine Test: 'Goal Of This Mission Is...'

Elon Musk‘s rocket manufacturing company, SpaceX, posted a ten-second video on Wednesday of another engine test ahead of the next flight test for its Starship, touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle.

The short video depicts a static fire test of a single Raptor engine on the vehicle, which will undertake Starship’s fourth flight test.

Musk shared the video on Twitter and wrote, “Getting ready for Flight 4 of Starship!” Musk added that the goal of the upcoming Starship mission would be to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere with all systems functioning.

During Starship’s latest and third flight test on March 14, the spacecraft lost contact and broke down while re-entering the planet's atmosphere instead of splashing down as planned in the Indian Ocean. The entirety of the last flight lasted about an hour.

SpaceX launched the Starship twice last year — the first time in April and then in November.

Why It Matters: Musk said earlier this month that the company is eyeing nine launches for the Starship this year to establish a launch rhythm before targeting the Moon.

NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The agency expects to land two astronauts on the Moon no earlier than September 2026 in the Artemis III mission with a lunar lander variant of the Starship.

The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

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