SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that the company would launch its Starship rocket again in about two weeks, earlier than a previously stated timeline.
What Happened: “Starship Flight 4 in about 2 weeks,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. For the next flight, Starship’s goal is to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere with all systems functioning despite the extreme heat, he added.
“Worth noting that no one has ever succeeded in creating a fully reusable heat shield. Shuttle required >6 months of rework,” he said.
SpaceX on Monday said it has already completed the launch rehearsal for the upcoming flight.
Last week, Musk had pegged Starship’s fourth flight to happen in three to five weeks, pegging the next launch for sometime in June.
Why It Matters: Starship is touted as the world's most powerful launch vehicle with its 121-meter tall frame weighing approximately 5,000 tonnes.
During Starship’s previous 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.
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 by September 2026 as part of 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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Image: Created with artificial intelligence on MidJourney and Official SpaceX Photos on Flickr
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