SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that the company will be launching its Starship rocket again in three to five weeks, pegging the next launch for sometime in June.
What Happened: The next flight test of Starship will launch probably in three to five weeks, Musk said on X. For the next flight of Starship, the goal is to re-enter Earth's atmosphere with all systems functioning despite the extreme heat, he added.
“Probably 3 to 5 weeks. Objective is for the ship to get past max heating or at least further than last time,” Musk wrote.
Why It Matters: Starship is touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle with its 121-meter tall frame weighing approximately 5000 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 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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Image: Created with artificial intelligence on MidJourney and Official SpaceX Photos on Flickr
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